No major motion picture as mediocre as “Practical Magic 2” deserves the emotional response this film sometimes generates.
It’s released 28 years after the original film, with its two stars — Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman –– having collected Academy Awards in the interim. They’re rejoined by their grandes dames supporting “aunties,” Dianne Wiest and Stockard Channing, with the formidable Danish director Susanne Bier (“In a Better World,” “After the Wedding,” “Birdbox”) taking over behind the camera.
That earned them an impressive near-blockbuster opening weekend, so “Magic 2” feels like a celebration of sorts, especially for women who — like its stars — have survived a fraught couple of decades in a man’s business in a man’s world seemingly at war with them since the original film came out.
But if you have trouble remembering the “Practical” original, that’s because it’s forgettable. And the sequel doubles down on forgettability, an empty husk of an all-star extravaganza, a “Harry Potter” or “Hocus Pocus” for grownups.
The romance, source of a witch family “curse” in the first film, is downplayed to the point of nearly omitted altogether. The moment the stakes and plot turn towards “perilous” is laughably abrupt, one of the few real “laughs” in the damned thing.
And then the climax is slowly steamrolled by a parade of anti-climaxes, with any sense of a “graceful exit” beaten to death, even if there are plans for “Practical Magic 3.”
But don’t Kidman and Bullock look fabulous, returning to roles they first played in their ’30s? That seems to be the emphasis here, two 60somethings reprising versions of two sisters at war with their witchy heritage.
Sally (Bullock) found her “happily ever after” in “Magic 1” with Gary (Aidan Quinn), seemingly breaking “The Curse” that hung over the supernatural women of the Massachusetts branch of the Owens family. But Gary died between films, leaving the fussbudget librarian who finds “comfort in order” with two daughters, who’ve grown up to be a boy-magnet coed (Joey King) and a med student (Maisie Williams) about to be a full fledged doctor.
Sally’s dizzy, partying, don’t-love’em-and-still-leave’em sister Gillian, Gilly (Kidman) kept her vow not to do witchy things or tell Sally’s daughters about their bloodline. Gillian took the curse, that any Owens woman who falls in love is doomed to see that lover die, seriously. She never fell in love.
But the ageing spinster wiccans who raised them, Aunt Jet (Wiest) and Aunt Frances (Channing) are still around, still expressing concern. And Jet is having a birthday. It doesn’t matter that the town shuns them, save for the lovelorn or lovesick young women who seek the “weird sisters”‘ magical assistance. The three generations of Owens women can still have a party.
But that’s where we figure out what why they’re seeing ravens in town,. That’s what that “Raven” book Aunt Jet has been re-reading is for. That’s when we first see and hear the scarab, “The Deathwatch Beetle.” Someone in their ranks is doomed.
That death leads to blurted revelations to Sally’s daughters. And as daughter Kylie (King, of “The Kissing Booth” Netflix movies, “Bullet Train” and “Radium Girls”) is in the process of falling in love, she finds herself making a guilt trip to the Olde Country (Britain) to the family’s ancestral home to break the curse and save the life of her beloved.
Naturally Sally and by extension Gilly set off in pursuit. Slowly.
They’ll deal with hexes and curses and bad blood going back centuries and a naked professor (Lee Pace) who needs…reviving. And consulting.
That near-nude hex scene is as naughty or edgy as this romance novel piffle gets. Big questions hang around the periphery but are never addressed head-on in the story. Sally’s determined to never “like” again, much less “love.” Gilly’s issues are mainly with her sister’s denial of their “powers” and heritage.
The pacing is leaden, and then there’s the abrupt turn towards imminent peril, which is every bit as juvenile as the most inispid Harry Potter showdowns.
But King sells the pathos of young love, Kidman makes the most she can of the most fun character (the script is…lacking) and Bullock trots out her perfectly-preserved “While You Were Sleeping” sad and loveless face in most every scene.
The film seems structurally bound to serve the older leading ladies, leaving the younger ones (“Game of Thrones” alumna Williams has nothing to play) shortchanged and the elder stateswomen only a few moments to sparkle.
And yet for all that, it touches us here and there — even, for the briefest of moments, in that excruciating drawn-out finale.
As with her Netflixt film with Bullock, Bier is better than this material. The film has a fine sheen to it, and there’s gloss in the effects and in the makeup, which touches up what filler does its best to hide. But there’s almost nothing of substance here.
One would like to think our younger “older” stars would look to the example of Wiest, ageing with grace and beauty, instead of competing to see who can out-skinny or under-wrinkle their 20something supporting starlets.
But Nic and Sandy negotiated and bonded and worked out a deal and made a sequel to a film whose big screen success was magnified to the n’th degree on TV reruns and streaming into a fan favorite.
And if it’s no better than the first film — and in some ways worse — this feminine cast and crew still deserve this victory lap with their female fans. Let’s just hope the towering talents here all parlay this hit into better roles, ones they can sink their teeth into and not their magic wands.
Rating: PG-13, profanity, adult situations,
Cast: Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman, Joey King, Maisie Williams, Dianne Wiest, Stockard Channing and Lee Pace.
Directed by Susanne Bier, scripted by Akiva Goldsman, Georgia Pritchett and Kelly Marcel, based on the novel by Alice Hoffman. A Warner Bros. release.
Running time: 2:10
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