The magic is gone. That much is impossible to ignore. Practical Magic 2 is little more than re-heated nostalgia bait, though Warner Bros. would like to pass it off as a worthy successor, a star-driven flick deserving of full ticket price. Perhaps they feel entitled to the millennial audience who grew up with the original film in their VCR rotation, dusting off the VHS jacket each autumn. After all, industry think-tanks continue to view the “legacy sequel” as a safe investment: Ghostbusters has returned, again and again; Jurassic Park (via Jurassic World) won’t fade away. Major studios seem to be doing everything in their power to get butts in seats, but while box office receipts dwindle against the corporate swell of streaming revenue, one wonders if the call isn’t coming from inside the house. The hegemonic status of David Zaslav’s Warner Bros. Discovery seems perfectly poised to follow Netflix’s general line: dump everything on streaming. Quality can suffer if quantity keeps HBO Max’s subscriber count climbing. The theatrical experience has become a ruse, an empty gesture. Increasingly, major studios are producing films for a streaming audience. In the case of Practical Magic 2, it’s painfully obvious.
Panned by critics in 1998, though a box office success, Practical Magic has gone on to become a cultural touchstone on the strength of basic cable favoritism and now HBO platforming. Charged through with the chemistry of Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock, its campy, soapy, and witchy tone has become an undeniable fixture of our cultural aesthetic. Like Alice Hoffman’s best-selling novel of the same name, the film hit on a unique, and uniquely popular, formula. By bringing the long shadow of New England’s history with witchcraft into the modern age, and by making it whimsical, the film simultaneously lowered the lofty expectations of the audience while elevating the effortlessly relatable circumstance of the sisters at its center.
But where the history of witchcraft in New England is one of persecution, Practical Magic was far from The Crucible. Sally (Bullock) and Gillian Owens (Kidman) were persecuted in the more relatable ways of love and loss — only they dealt with it using magic. Thus was a golden formula located: the film lessened its fantasy in favor of real life struggle, and even the film’s style, overseen by director Griffin Dunne, struck the same balance. Shaggy at times, which critics hated, but also earnest, emotionally vulnerable, and flat-out goofy, the tone kept audiences coming back for more. It became a comfort movie for a generation, so much so that it rose the ranks on HBO Max, registering in the top five most streamed films through the 2020s. The algorithm had spoken. It was time for Warner Bros. to try again.
This was all helped by the fact that, away in another medium, author Alice Hoffman’s follow-up to the original’s titular source material — titled The Book of Magic — landed as a decently-sized success upon its publication in 2017, bring the Owens back into orbit of the zeitgeist. Assuming that Kidman and Bullock were available, then, surely this was a worthy investment? Directed by Susanne Bier (who worked with Bullock on Bird Box and Kidman on The Undoing, though still remains an unorthodox choice here when considering the sum of her filmography), folding in estimable talents like composer Rupert Gregson-Williams and DP Simon Duggan (Furiosa) behind the scenes, and juicing the cast with Maisie Williams, Lee Pace, and Joey King join in front of the camera, the pieces were in place — perhaps, for magic.
Maybe it’s the film grain, the texture of the 35mm film frame; maybe it’s an industry no longer amenable to mid-budget crowd-pleasers the way they were 30 years ago; maybe it’s the undeniable cynicism of a studio who feels owed a cut of your pocketbook simply because they’ve remade an old favorite of yours. Whatever it is informing the creation and execution of Practical Magic 2, when comparing it with its predecessor, the flaws are obvious and legion. After all, if we have learned anything over the last decade, it’s that considering a ’90s cult- or cozy-classic to its streaming-era legacy sequel is an exercise of diminishing returns. But here we are in 2026 nonetheless, and the Owens are still contending with the same family curse that plagued their number in the original. Fitting, then, that the most memorable bits of Practical Magic 2 are just that — memories. Recycled gags, familiar emotional beats, and a vaguely familiar — read: reused — plot. Kidman and Bullock are at least committed to amiably riffing throughout this reunion, and seeing the two of them together in these roles is the only genuine spark the film offers. Unfortunately, it’s a losing battle.
Gone in Practical Magic 2 is the warm glow of candlelight, gone is the texture, feeling, and effervescence of movement. Instead, Bier’s film is shot through a gauzy, smudgy filter with shallow focus vignetting on nearly every frame. The camera moves without emotion, less dynamic, less alive, than it was 30 years ago. The coverage is clunky, even distracting, and both the blocking and pacing of scenes is at times so awkward that the entire cast seems to be improvising, and poorly. Perhaps this was intentional tilt at the the original film, which has a specific levity thanks to its casual style. Critics complained at the time of abrupt changes of tone, but audiences responded to them. Practical Magic was fantasy meets melodrama, witchcraft lore meets daytime TV, and in that context its technical flaws had a good-natured purity. Here, in an age of ballooned budgets and streaming gloss, such weaknesses merely feel low effort. Fans of Practical Magic deserve better, especially when Warner Bros. is asking them to flock to theaters. Instead, if you already enjoy an HBO Max subscription, Practical Magic 2 will no doubt be streaming there in time for Halloween and a cozy night in with friends. Or, better yet, you can just throw on the original.
DIRECTOR: Susanne Bier; CAST: Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman, DIanne Wiest, Joey King, Stockard Channing; DISTRIBUTOR: Warner Bros.; IN THEATERS: September 10; RUNTIME: 2 hr. 10 min.
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