Another legacy sequel has arrived, and despite taking place in the presentish with all the accompanying CGI and other digital accessories, it’s funny how Practical Magic 2 seems very stuck in time. Its complete inability to truly move forward in any sense affects every single frame, every turn the story takes, and most troubling of all, how its leads act what this film views as their age.
It tries to evade that fact by widening the world of the much beloved 1998 original, taking the family across the pond to the root of its evil, a curse that has doomed the Owens women to life without the men who love them, a truly terrible fate in the eyes of Practical Magic 2. So much so that it undoes the whole sisterhood proving strong enough to undo that legacy thing the first film ended on.
Yep, fooled ya! The curse is still going strong, that dreamy cop who fell for Sally (Sandra Bullock) gets killed off, and she’s even more obsessed with the whole normalcy thing to the extent that she’s not only once again refusing to use her considerable powers, she’s erased her daughters’ knowledge of their witchy heritage. Kinda weird considering they all still live in the same town, and the residents are now coming in the front door for magical aid rather than sneaking in the back, but whatever. There are worse things to come.
The main drag is also the focus, that being Kylie (Joey King) telling her man candy boyfriend Gideon (Xolo Maridueña) she loves him, with Gideon meeting the kind of tragic accident that ends up putting him in a coma shortly afterwards. Call me old-fashioned, but I thought marriage and kids came first. Family laundry is dragged into the harsh light of day, Kylie finds a magical book and heads off for England alone, with her very single sister Antonia (a criminally wasted Maisie Williams) stuck with the thankless task of caring for Gideon. Since she works in the medical field, at least we know she’s getting paid for remaining out of the loop for most of the runtime.
Meanwhile, Sally and her own sis Gillian (Nicole Kidman) are hot on Kylie’s trail, with Sally somehow managing to catch the eye of a very well put together Ian (Lee Pace) who comes with his own magical knowledge and baggage. In Practical Magic 2, the meek really do inherit the earthy guys who are needed to awaken their powers, as well as all those hot and heavy feelings, even when your already wide awake sibling is ready and able to do the heavy lifting.
“What a good story if things end up the way they began?” Take a page out of your own magic book lady. This is a sequel that can’t seem to move on, to the extent that it insists its original leads likewise remain unnaturally preserved. It’s awkward, commenting on women’s bodies in an industry that insists they stay young and condemns them for surgically responding to those demands, but Kidman and Bullock’s faces are so damn frozen that it’s difficult to focus on their chemistry, or even Kidman’s comedic gifts.
The aunts (Jet) Dianne Wiest and Franny (Stockard Channing) are also nearly unrecognizably far from the quirky avatars of independence of the first movie, now gracefully and willingly self-sacrificing, especially when it comes to their niece’s need for a man in her life. And why are their nieces twentysomethings anyway, given that it’s been nearly thirty years since the previous Practical Magic?
It could’ve worked if they weren’t also shrouded in surroundings about as unnatural, to the extent that my plus one at the screening, who hadn’t watched the first film, referred to the family home as a McMansion. I couldn’t blame him, seeing as to how it had been transformed from a luscious lived-in space overflowing with character(s) and greenery to a kind of shiny aesthetic that could only be called a home on an influencer reel. When you can’t even get a setting that practically became its own aesthetic right, something is seriously wrong.
If there are a few laughs and upbeat moments, they’re mostly due to callbacks to the first Practical Magic, and Kidman and Bullock’s easy charm whenever they share the screen. It’s about the only thing that feels alive in this limp follow up.
Grade: D