Practical Magic 2 Review: A Complicated Spell

Picking up nearly three decades after the original, we find Sally Owens (Bullock) living a life of guarded contentment. Her daughters, Kylie (Joey King) and Antonia (Maisie Williams), are now young women navigating their own romantic entanglements, but the shadow of the Owens curse - the one that kills any man they truly love - has not dissipated. It has merely learned new tricks. After a mysterious death rattles their coastal Massachusetts town, Gillian (Kidman) sweeps back in with her signature whirlwind of chaos, convinced that the family’s ancient malevolent spirit isn’t just a metaphor. It’s a predatory entity that feeds on the Owens women’s isolation, and it has set its sights on the next generation.

The sisters must work with their aunts (Dianne Wiest and Stockard Channing, still a delight) to unearth the origin of the curse, which involves a new, spectral antagonist (Lee Pace, playing a weaselly historian with an agenda). Meanwhile, Kylie finds herself drawn to a grounded local carpenter (Xolo Maridueña), forcing Sally to confront the painful paradox of teaching her daughter to love when love itself is a death sentence.

Let’s start with the incantations that work. Bier, known for her intense emotional dramas like The Undoing, brings a genuine visual gravitas to the proceedings. The cinematography is lush, trading the original’s cozy autumnal glow for a more atmospheric, moonlit gothic palette. The magic itself is handled with more weight and consequence - rituals feel ancient, and the film’s central metaphor of female resilience is treated with sober respect. Bullock and Kidman slip back into their roles like they never left. Bullock’s Sally is more brittle, worn down by grief and vigilance, while Kidman’s Gillian is still a shimmering beacon of appetizing chaos, but with a new layer of tragic practicality. Their scenes together crackle with an earned intimacy that no amount of green CGI can replicate.

The problem arrives with the film’s fractured focus. The inclusion of King and Williams is a smart way to expand the lore, but the screenplay gives them precious little to work with. King has some nice moments of rebellious exasperation, but Williams is relegated to the "smart one who reads old books" role, sighing exposition at the audience. Xolo Maridueña is charming, but his character is so saintly that he feels less like a love interest and more like a perfectly supportive hallucination. Lee Pace, meanwhile, is aggressively miscast; his theatrical eeriness clashes with the film’s otherwise grounded tone.

Where the sequel truly stumbles is in its pacing. At 130 minutes, it drags in the second act, fumbling through a subplot involving a supposed antidote to the curse that feels like a fetch quest from a lesser fantasy franchise. The runtime bloats what should be a tight, 100-minute emotional thriller. And while Bier handles the drama well, she struggles with the comedy. The quirkiness that defined the first film - the midnight margaritas, the zombie boyfriend, the aunts’ macabre gardening - is mostly absent. Here, the humor feels forced, often deflating a scene’s tension rather than enriching it.

Then there’s the ending. Without spoiling, the resolution feels too neat, resolving a generational curse with a modern "therapy-session" logic that betrays the mythic quality of the story. It’s adult, it’s sane, but it lacks the wild, irresponsible joy that made the original’s finale so cathartic. As a result, Practical Magic 2 feels less like a spell and more like a clinical removal of the hex. It’s a competent, well-acted drama that forgets that the first film’s power wasn’t in the plot, but in the messy, imperfect, and defiant love between two fringe-dwelling witches.

Pros

• The Bullock/Kidman dynamic is worth the price of admission alone; their shared history bleeds into every glance.
• Stunning visual palette; Bier makes the Massachusetts coast feel both idyllic and menacing.
• Wiest and Channing are scene-stealers, providing the only real connective tissue to the original's charm.
• The central theme of breaking intergenerational trauma is handled with intelligence and care.

Cons

• A muddled, overstuffed plot that introduces too many half-baked magical rules.
• The younger cast is underserved, particularly Maisie Williams, who is wasted in a one-note role.
• The runtime is bloated, with a distinct lag in the second act.
• A noticeable lack of levity; the "romance" and "comedy" genres listed on the tin are barely represented.

Practical Magic 2 is a cinematic contradiction. It’s a sequel that respects its source material intellectually but misses it emotionally. It’s a high-gloss production that features two of our greatest stars firing on all cylinders, yet it consistently refuses to give them the kooky, dangerous playground they deserve. The original movie wasn't a masterpiece of storytelling either, but it had soul. This sequel has wisdom, which is often far less fun to watch. If you’re a devotee of the Owens women, you’ll find moments of genuine beauty here, and the tearful reunions between Bullock and Kidman are pure celluloid gold. But if you came for a spooky good time, you’ll find yourself checking your watch more than you check for spirits. It’s a worthy, if imperfect, extension of the lore. Just approach it like a desaturated, rainy-day sequel: beautiful to look at, but missing the warmth of the sun.