The Owens sisters are back, and so is the argument over whether that’s a good thing. “Practical Magic 2,” the long-gestating follow-up to the 1998 cult favorite, has landed in theaters with a sharp split between critics and ticket-buyers — and enough box office muscle to briefly unseat a superhero juggernaut, according to a review published by The Daily Wire.
The Daily Wire’s critic describes the film as “two hours of nostalgia bait,” a sequel that leans hard into the aesthetic signatures of the original while waving off concerns about plot and dialogue. Audiences appear to have signed on anyway: the outlet reports an audience score of 92% on Rotten Tomatoes, even as professional critics panned the movie.
The commercial result was striking enough to note. According to the review, enough women bought tickets to “temporarily knock ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ off its box office throne” — a detail that suggests the sequel’s appeal runs well beyond the viewers who typically turn out for witch movies.
A sequel built on nostalgia, not story
The review is candid about what the film is and isn’t. It describes a movie that delivers flowing hair extensions, smoky eyes, ethereal dressing gowns and candlelit interiors — a mood board more than a narrative. The soundtrack reportedly weaves a Brandi Carlile cover of Billy Joel’s “And So It Goes” into a score the critic says feels like it came from an era before audiences got used to seeing every pore in high definition.
The death beetle returns, folding into the strum of Stevie Nicks’ “Landslide.” So does the whipped cream pentagram from the original — this time fully engulfed in flames. The “Book of the Raven,” now clearly possessed, is presented as the only chance of breaking the romance curse hanging over the Owens family in time for Sally’s daughters to fall in love.
Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman reprise their roles as Sally and Gillian Owens, with Dianne Wiest returning as Aunt Jet. The next generation of Owens women is played by Maisie Williams and Joey King. The review notes the production fully recreated the 19th-century Queen Anne-style home from the first film and added new Cotswolds imagery when the cast heads to the United Kingdom.
New to the cast is a tattooed professor named Ian Wright, played with what the review calls a “devastatingly British accent.” In one scene, he places a palm on Sally’s chest in hopes of releasing her true magic. “May I?” he asks. Sally rolls her eyes, while Gillian stage-whispers her approval.
The dialogue between them sketches the film’s central tension. “You’re afraid of your power,” Ian tells Sally. She pushes back: “No. I’ve seen what my power can do.” When he warns that she ignores her heritage at her peril, Sally responds with a line the review compares to Jennifer Aniston’s comic stylings on “Friends” — “Oh my God, can we please not do the ‘peril’ speech?”
Critics panned it; audiences showed up anyway
That gap between critical reception and audience enthusiasm sits at the center of the sequel’s story. The Daily Wire review itself doesn’t pretend the film is well made. It concedes the plot has holes, that most of the dialogue is forgettable, and that the villainous out-of-body monster voice “sounded too modern to believe.” It also flags what it calls Hollywood’s obsession with a muted palette, noting that the original film was saturated with color while the sequel leaves Bullock and Kidman as the brightest features on screen.
The review even suggests the younger Owens women were “almost physically muted as not to outshine their snatched and Botoxed elders.”
And yet the verdict is warmer than the criticism implies. The reviewer describes happily taking “a butter knife to the heart” the moment the death beetle’s buzzing folded into “Landslide,” and sums up the appeal with a single image: Bullock and Kidman leaning their heads on each other’s shoulders and sighing. “Give me that sentimental slop,” the review reads. “Don’t stop until I say ‘when.'”
The piece also notes a brief, easily missed hint at a same-sex relationship and a message about loving “how you want to love” — a moment the reviewer admits went by too fast to fully register.
One long-standing complaint from fans of the original does get addressed. The sequel finally acknowledges that the “lime in the coconut” song — Harry Nilsson’s “Coconut,” the soundtrack to the first film’s midnight margaritas — is not, in fact, a recipe for blended margaritas. The review calls it the most gaping story hole and notes it was sewn up in minutes.
As for the future of the franchise, the review concludes that “Practical Magic 2” didn’t set the stage for an expanded trilogy — while cautioning that Hollywood has a habit of raising franchises from the dead. For viewers who want the cozy-autumn feeling without the compromises, the piece points to “You’ve Got Mail,” “When Harry Met Sally,” “Chocolat,” 1970’s “Love Story” and “Silver Linings Playbook,” among others.
For now, the sequel’s commercial performance has already answered one question the first film left open: whether a 1990s witch romance could still draw a crowd nearly three decades later. The audience score and the brief box office upset suggest it can — at least for a weekend.
Source: www.dailywire.com — https://www.dailywire.com/news/practical-magic-2-delivers-pure-sentimental-slop