'Practical Magic 2' review: Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman can't outcharm this tedious sequel
Courtesy of Warner Bros.
We now live in an age when any tangible piece of intellectual property, regardless of its original critical or cultural relevance, can be resurrected in the name of nostalgia. It’s the primary reason a movie like “Practical Magic 2” can exist, considering the original 1998 outing was far from a box-office smash and only found its footing years later as a cult classic on home video. That, and having the names Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman above the marquee still means something. Yet “Practical Magic” was never the barnburner its sequel seems to remember, and this tedious follow-up makes a persuasive case that when lightning strikes in a bottle, perhaps we should leave well enough alone.
Don’t tell that to the cast, though, who insist that “people have been begging us for a sequel.” That may be true, and those people could surely find something to enjoy here, but recognition and affection only carry “Practical Magic 2” so far. There’s precious little enchantment in this nearly two-and-a-half-hour reunion with the infamous Owens sisters, who are drawn back into a world they believed was firmly in their past. The actors arrive ready to rekindle the old magic, but the movie surrounding them is so preoccupied with extending the mythology that it forgets what made audiences fall for these characters in the first place.
The film opens with one of those lumbering voiceovers tasked with explaining the entire plot of the first movie, including the lovers’ curse and all that, because the studio is understandably hedging its bets that many viewers only saw the original once. Guilty as charged. Aside from Bullock and Kidman, the witchy atmosphere and the whole midnight margaritas of it all, there wasn’t much I remembered or felt compelled to hold onto. Rather than gracefully reacquainting us with this world, however, the sequel unloads its exposition as if preparing viewers for a test.
That sets the tone for a movie that repeatedly confuses more lore with more substance.
Anyhow, magical siblings Sally (Bullock) and Gilly (Kidman) are back, although Sally has sworn off her powers and wants to shield her daughters, Kylie (Joey King) and Antonia (Maisie Williams), from that part of their heritage. Given that her first two marriages ended in heartache, her reluctance is understandable. The curse dates back to an ancestor who was so devastated by love in 1800s Salem that she condemned the family bloodline, ensuring that any unfortunate soul who fell for an Owens woman would die. As one character observes, it is “not exactly good for the Tinder bio.”
Naturally, nobody listens to Sally’s warnings. Her refusal to embrace the family’s heritage eventually leaves Kylie’s aw-shucks boyfriend, Gideon (Xolo Maridueña), in a coma and sends everyone on a wild goose chase to England to break the curse once and for all. This brings Sally and Gilly into the orbit of magical historian Professor Ian Wright, played by Lee Pace in full hunk mode, but his presence only gives the screenplay another complication it doesn’t know how to resolve. Ian functions as both an enormous red herring and a forced love interest for Sally, although the bigger question is why Gilly can’t be the one allowed to find happiness. Worse, despite Ian’s insistence to the contrary, he and Sally share little chemistry, leaving Pace stranded in a romantic subplot that feels mandated rather than discovered.
It’s certainly nice to see Bullock onscreen again, especially since she works so infrequently these days, but her return doesn’t register as a fully formed performance so much as the centerpiece of a reunion special. She and Kidman still possess enough individual charisma to remind us why watching them together was once the entire point, yet “Practical Magic 2” keeps separating its most valuable ingredients. Their chemistry is treated as something the audience will remember instead of something the sequel needs to reignite, so what should feel like an affectionate return gradually becomes an exercise in waiting for the movie to come alive.
The overstuffed screenplay, credited to Alice Hoffman, Akiva Goldsman and Georgia Pritchett, does the cast no favors because it splits everyone into separate narrative holding patterns. Poor Maisie Williams receives the shortest end of the stick and spends much of the movie confined to a hospital beside the comatose Maridueña, while other characters chase pieces of mythology that eventually converge more out of obligation than momentum. That fragmentation drains the sequel of the communal energy it desperately needs. A story about generations of women drawing strength from one another shouldn’t feel this disconnected from its own ensemble.
Meanwhile, returning veterans Dianne Wiest and Stockard Channing are once again tasked with passing the baton to the current generation, even though the first movie already appeared to accomplish that. Their presence supplies a welcome burst of familiarity, but “Practical Magic 2” too often treats familiar faces as a substitute for meaningful character development. Everyone is present because the audience expects them to be, not necessarily because the screenplay has found a compelling reason to bring them back.
These scattered storylines eventually lead to a convoluted showdown with a villain who doesn’t appear until nearly 90 minutes into the movie. Introducing the central threat that late could have produced a clever reversal, but the character instead arrives with a contrived monologue and a heap of additional exposition, forcing the climax to carry emotional weight the film has not earned. By the time the villain begins explaining how everything fits together, the mystery has ceased to be involving and simply becomes homework. The problem isn’t that the mythology is too complicated to follow. It’s that none of it is interesting enough to justify the effort.
For something ostensibly pitched as a comedy, “Practical Magic 2” also feels like an eternity. At 130 minutes, it’s an overlong, overstuffed continuation of a saga that should have stayed beside those margaritas in the ’90s. There are several fake-out endings by my count, each one diluting whatever emotional impact the previous scene managed to generate. Director Susanne Bier, who previously worked with Bullock on the oft-forgotten “Bird Box,” can’t reel in the competing storylines or shape them into a cohesive whole. The pacing remains slack, the comedy rarely builds and the supposedly emotional reunions are smothered beneath all the supernatural bookkeeping.
That is ultimately the curse “Practical Magic 2” cannot break. It brings back the stars, spells, family history and midnight margaritas, yet never rediscovers the loose, eccentric charm that allowed the original to survive beyond its initial reception. Nostalgia may have summoned the Owens sisters from the cinematic dead, but nostalgia alone cannot give them another story worth telling. By the time this one finally reaches its last ending, you’ll want a boozy beverage yourself just for making it through the thing.
Grade: C
PRACTICAL MAGIC 2 is now playing in theaters.
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