Flawless movie stars Sandra Bullock ("The Lost City," 2022) and Nicole Kidman ("Babygirl,' 2024) are together again for the PG-13 sequel "Practical Magic 2.' But if I were in charge of this film, I would call it 'Practical Magic 2: Electric Boogaloo," because this sequel needs all the help it can get to show the smallest semblance of creative frivolity.
I watched this one in the movie theater alone, and multiple times during its two-hour 10-minute run-time I thought to myself, “Should I be drunk during this? Would some cocktails rushing through my body make this feel more fun?” Watching the characters drink glasses of wine, whiskey, and margaritas did not help me let go of this alcohol distraction.
The first "Practical Magic" film was released in 1998 adapted from a novel of the same name by Alice Hoffman first published in 1995. I remember watching this film in the theater when it was released, and I don’t remember anything special, clever, or funny about it. But I know my memory doesn’t confirm a film’s quality. I might have missed some great moments in this entry to the 90s romantic comedy genre, so I still sat down in the movie theater with an open mind to enjoy the sequel.
Twenty-eight years later is the sequel, this time adapted from the 2021 Alice Hoffman novel "The Book of Magic.' I have nothing special to report about this film.
Sandra and Nicole’s characters, the Owens sisters Sally and Gillian, still live in Massachusetts with their aunts, and Sally’s two daughters are 20-something grown-ups named Kylie and Antonia (Maisie Williams, "The New Mutants," 2020). After her boyfriend gets hit by a car, the daughter Kylie (Joey King, "Uglies," 2024) learns of her family’s magical history of witches and the curse of all women in this family to live without true love.
So Kylie flees her family home in tears and flies to England searching for a way to use her newly discovered magical powers and end the curse forever. Sally and Gillian become overly-concerned chaperones running after Kylie to England hoping to stop her from getting in trouble with dangerous dark magic.
Every moment of comedy, sisterly love, and bashful romance lands horribly moderate. Nothing is exciting or different or bold in this film. I did sense a bit of believable danger when actress Joey King gets her head smashed against a wall and then gets stabbed with a long needle under her collar bone. Odd there was no visible blood on her torso when that happened. I guess that’s part of the magic. And speaking of magic, there’s so little of the spells and potions you would expect from a film like this, I started forgetting the main characters had witchy powers at all.
I got so progressively bored watching this that I started to analyze the outfits Sandra and Nicole were wearing. Their dresses and skirts made me think, “What if Stevie Nicks shopped at Urban Outfitters?”
This sequel isn’t a disappointment as big as “The Devil Wears Prada 2” was earlier this year, but it’s a distant second place so far.
