The Owens sisters are back after almost 30 years in Practical Magic 2.
Returning for the long-awaited sequel are Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman alongside new additions to the cast Joey King, Maisie Williams and Lee Pace.
Set 25 years after the cult classic original, the sequel sees the Owens clan heading to the UK, in the hopes of attempting to break the family’s love curse.
While many have been looking forward to reuniting with the film’s central duo for some more midnight margaritas, it seems critics haven’t fallen under this sequel’s spell, with select reviews describing it as a “structural mess”, “disappointingly conventional” and even a “money grab”.
Here’s what critics are saying about Practical Magic 2…
“This late sequel delivers a retread of the signposts that made the original a beloved fixture for certain moviegoers, while failing to correct the flaws that made everyone else all but forget it for three decades.”
“As the Owens well know, some spells are built to last, others to be broken. Some movies are made to endure in the public’s affection, such that there’s appetite for a follow-up even decades later. Others are content simply to provoke a few smiles, before dissipating like smoke with the very next breeze.”
“Beyond the cheap sell of seeing beloved characters again, Practical Magic 2 is not an especially entertaining movie.”
“Practical Magic 2 goes heavy on the sell that ‘no magic is stronger than sisterhood’, yet, beyond Kidman and Bullock, the rest of the Owenses barely share screen time or character development.”
“The Owens women remain bewitching company, but this belated sequel trades the original’s unruly feminist magic for something disappointingly conventional. The midnight margaritas are back. The magic, sadly, isn’t.”
“It’s comfort viewing for fans – ideally loaded with the original film’s ‘midnight margaritas’ – who may titter along to the script’s so-bad-it’s-good zingers […] But just as Sally has forgotten who she is and what made her powerful, so this sequel can’t bottle the original’s zig-a-zig-ah.”
“Ultimately, Practical Magic 2 has no idea what it’s trying to do. It’s lacking in magic in just about every sense – there is, genuinely, far less spellcasting than you would expect – and possesses no real point of view for the Owens sisters. The fact that the first film is such a structural mess actually left the door open for some imagination here, but it’s too committed to its tedious plot.”
“By the end of the first act, Practical Magic 2 abandons its secret weapon—cosy New England aesthetics, all burnt orange and worn fabrics—to journey to the cold, unappealing greys of London. This shift, combined with the antiseptic harshness of the digital cinematography (as opposed to the hazy film of the ’90s), lends the movie a made-for-TV quality it can’t shake.”
“The film finally finds its groove during the last 10 minutes or so — sweetly paying tribute to the original and feeling nostalgic in a good way — but by that point, it’s too late, and that’s the most heartbreaking part. It’s evidence that Practical Magic 2 had all the potential to be a satisfying follow-up but falls short in almost every way.”
“I knew the odds of Practical Magic 2 being a genuinely good legacy sequel were slim to none, but I didn’t think it was going to miss the mark this badly. Nothing screams ‘money grab’ quite like stripping away almost all of what made the original film so special.”
“[The film is] a fun, flawed sequel that does enough to conjure the original’s messy magic. But if an Owens sister had recited a spell for a tighter runtime – ‘Filmas Concisas’ perhaps? – Practical Magic 2 could have really taken flight.”
“A nostalgia-bait return to the witchy 90s comedy is as strange and messy as the first but there are warm seasonal pleasures to be had.”
“Disarmingly bad lines are peppered throughout, but there are far more genuine laugh lines. Kidman in particular shines, although, unsurprisingly, her scenes with Bullock are undoubtedly her best. It seems the passage of time didn’t affect these actresses’ ability to perfectly portray just how complex sister dynamics can be, all while charming the audience with their wit and, at times, downright silliness.”
“While Practical Magic 2 is not quite as satisfying as the original, failing to capture what made it so magical in favor of a nostalgia-driven IP grab, it lays the groundwork for a franchise that could take the opportunity to redeem itself.”
“The Practical Magic 2 cast are hexed by a script that focuses far too much on convoluted plotting instead of giving the legacy characters interesting growth and scenes where we get to know who these women are today, and how they’ve grown beyond their tropes 20 years later.”
“The story becomes convoluted, and character depictions are frustratingly thin. But after some whiz-bang action, the sequel’s tone evens out with a finale that is once more joyful and unapologetically girly. Ultimately, like its older sister, Practical Magic 2 offers a wild ride into different genre influences. But it’s undeniably a joy to see Kidman, Bullock, Wiest, and Channing back again.”
Practical Magic 2 is in cinemas now.
