Joel on Film

Here is an odd brand of sequel, in that its 28-year-old predecessor didn’t exactly suggest the need for one. Then again, Alice Hoffman’s original novel that inspired 1998’s Practical Magic spawned two, more recent prequel novels—one an origin story about the older generation of siblings in the central family and the other set centuries before at the start of the family curse. Perhaps the existence of Practical Magic 2, which is an adaptation of the fourth and presumably final novel in the cycle does actually make sense.

The first film was fun enough as a sudsy soap opera of a supernatural romance, notable for contributing to the star factor of its lead actresses, Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman (though its middling box-office returns suggest otherwise, it was enough of a hit on home video and in television airings to justify a revival in the zeitgeist). They’re even bigger stars now, which doesn’t even take into account a couple of gold statuettes now in their possession, and so, of course, they return, respectively, as sisters Sally and Gillian Owens, heiresses of a family curse that plagues the men they love to die. A new generation obviously means a new pair of sisters to learn that unfortunate lesson.

Those would be Sally’s daughters by a first husband who died, and the story here picks up just a few years after the death of a second, with Sally having chosen to block off her magic abilities and avoid her aunts Jet (Dianne Wiest) and Frances (Stockard Channing). The natural endpoint and progression of human lives reaches one of these aunts barely after the film’s opening credits have ended, and it occurs just as she becomes the recipient of an ancient book of spells, one of which is an incantation to end the curse placed upon the family. Sally’s elder daughter Kylie (Joey King) might now be in love, a feeling which her aunt Gillian tries to quelch before it can turn into anything else.

That’s bad for Gideon (Xolo Maridueña), Kylie’s boyfriend, who has already said three little words to her and has been waiting for the reply. When the inevitable occurs, Kylie must confront the family legacy by journeying to England, where the roots of the Owenses reside. Sally and Gillian follow, of course, and seek the help of a professor, Ian Wright (Lee Pace), who is knowledgeable in the lore of witches and their practices.

That’s the basic breakdown of a plot that seems to start a certain place of development and gradually regresses itself to the point where only one of these characters is really important. It’s Sally’s show, ultimately, and that means all the pressure falls upon Bullock to carry the stakes of the story. She’s solid here, for what it’s worth, as a mother who realizes that her ultimate act of protection might have been exactly the wrong decision, and King, if anything, occasionally overshadows her older co-star as a daughter who feels deceived by her mother and a girlfriend desperate the save the young man with whom she realizes she wants to spend the rest of her life.

That’s not enough, though, to make up for the film’s more obvious shortcomings, such as how it sidelines the elder aunts and constantly forgets that Sally has an entire second daughter, Antonia (Maisie Williams), who is barely even afforded a defining characteristic beyond a career as a soon-to-be doctor. Once the plot (from a screenplay by Akiva Goldsman, Georgia Pritchett and Kelly Marcel) hits the ground running, director Susanne Bier redirects all her focus upon the banal concerns of the chase. It’s odd to consider that the conflict here ultimately stems from a bit of business regarding the idea of legacy, and it does, admittedly, involve a neat subversion of expectations—how we go from suspecting one person for their conspicuous introduction to realizing it’s another, almost nonchalantly introduced culprit.

There’s little else to call “subversive,” though, in this formulaic sequel that comes down to one set of digital powers overcoming another in a climax that’s both visually flat and a little too chaotic. We probably didn’t need a big-screen sequel to Practical Magic, and rather unfortunately, here’s Practical Magic 2 to remind us consistently why that’s the case.

Rating: ** (out of ****)