Practical Magic, 2026.
Directed by Susanne Bier.
Starring Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman, Maisie Williams, Joey King, Lee Pace, Dianne Wiest, Stockard Channing, Solly McLeod, and Xolo Mariduena.
SYNOPSIS:
A multi generational family of witches, cursed to be loveless for centuries, attempts to break the spell by confronting dark secrets and sacrificing for each other.
Let’s cast a quick truth spell; the original Practical Magic isn’t a very good film. A tonal mess that underperformed at the box-office, yet somehow managed to sprinkle enough magic on that 1998 audience that a coven of appreciation has grown for Alice Hoffman’s witches.
This follow-up, based on her 2021 novel The Book of Magic, once again summons Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman as the cursed Owens sisters, recasting their daughters as Maisie Williams (Game of Thrones) and Joey King (The Kissing Booth), to put them through a thematically similar adventure as the first film, but with more Harry Potter-style magic.
A lot of the familiarity comes from the fact that page one of the script has Practical Magic 2 perform the Alien 3 spell by seemingly retconning the already ambiguous events from the end of part one. Essentially, what this means is that the pesky curse that prevents Owens women from falling in love or a great tragedy will befall their beloved, is once again the driving force of the narrative.
It’s a sequel. Repeating the same trick isn’t the be-all-and-end-all of the film’s success. In fact, Practical Magic 2 starts out very strong, as a heady concoction of familiar faces and themes welcome us back to New England. There’s a real Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy feel to proceedings, as the sisters deal with their place in this new world, and process grief in a rather beautiful and moving opening section of the film.
It’s after this solid setup that you begin to hear the rattle of the death beetle, because what starts out as a generational story of sisterhood, motherhood, and friendship, all themes that admirably permeate the entire movie, quickly descends into a bloated Fantastic Beasts-style sequel.
There are duplicitous Tom-Riddle baddies, Hogwarts Express rides through the English countryside, and stand-offs in which streams of magic collide as they emanate from duelling witches. It’s a film striving to be something bigger, so it creates all this additional and unnecessary lore, when the simplicity of the original curse was enough in the first place.
The focus of the curse this time around is Joey King’s Kylie, who has been shielded from her hereditary powers and the burden it carries by her mother. When her boyfriend Gideon (Blue Beetle’s Xolo Mariduena) suffers the same bicycle related fate as her father, the supernatural secrets begin to spill out. This affords Bullock and King the opportunity to share some heartfelt exchanges that add real weight to the witchy proceedings, but such moments are few-and-far-between.
Maisie Williams isn’t so lucky, she gets hexed in the script department, side-tracked to stand in a single-room location as everyone else goes on a globe-trotting adventure. Nicole Kidman, while an absolute hoot, is also reduced to occasionally funny one-liners, and pratting about as if she’s cameoing in an episode of Absolutely Fabulous. She has no character development whatsoever and at times appears to be in a different movie to everyone else. The same can be said for Lee Pace, who’s game as the occult historian with the unintentionally hilarious name, but comes across as though he’s channelling Jude Law in a Halloween version of The Holiday.
Practical Magic 2 is as all over the apothecary as the original film, and despite having bundles of heart and good intentions, its bloated runtime, clunky dialogue, and countless memeable moments make it one for hardcore coven members only.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film ★ ★/ Movie ★ ★
Matt Rodgers – Follow me on Twitter
