It has taken nearly 30 years for Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman to return as the witchy Owen sisters from Practical Magic. I have to believe that somewhere in Hollywood, somebody was trying to protect us from this eventuality. Alas, Practical Magic 2 is here. That individual failed, and I hope they rot in hell.
Practical Magic 2 is a desperate cash grab, and a complete waste of Stockard Channing’s time. Rizzo deserved better!
Bullock and Kidman haven’t been lighting up the box office as of late. Bullock had a modest hit in 2022 with The Lost City, but hasn’t been in anything since. Kidman shows up in good movies, but she hasn’t been in a box-office juggernaut since Aquaman (2018), and she was just a supporting player in that one. And, you know … it was the stank Aquaman.
It’s a shame these two stars couldn’t find a better project to do together than Practical Magic 2. Every scene in this movie seems pointless, directionless and stagy. The movie feels like Bullock and Kidman showed up with good intentions but just wound up goofing around and making up lame shit for dialogue.
So, what exactly happens in this movie? Hell if I know! From what I could gather between retching spells, the Owen sisters (Kidman and Bullock) are still cursed, and all men who fall in love with them die—and perhaps the same could happen to their children (Maisie Williams and Joey King)—all doomed because an ancestor said it was so. They try to release the curse with a spell in a book that Dianne Wiest’s witch character has been keeping a secret for some inexplicable reason.
Lee Pace enters the fray as Bullock’s love interest as the action travels over to jolly old England—and he’s my pick for the year’s worst actor thus far. This guy has the most annoyingly slow, droning, emotionless line delivery in recent memory. Hey, producers: If you are looking for an actor to suck any sign of joy and fun out of your movie, hire this guy!
I pretty much spent most of the movie trying to figure out which actress, Kidman or Bullock, has had the most Botox shot into their face. I think I missed a lot of plot points because I was lost in the smooth, manufactured contours of their foreheads and cheeks. Hey, they can do whatever they want to their faces! I’m just saying this movie was so useless that my mind went there.
I have nothing against plastic surgery or injectable whatevers. Hey, I told ChatGPT to pretty up my LinkedIn picture the other day, and create a nice, fake suit for me while making my stupid face look better. That’s some AI/digital plastic surgery for sure! Don’t you be pointing fingers at me. You know you did it, too. I see all those AI-produced foggy gray backgrounds in your profile pics. That gray background is a harbinger of AI augmentation! We’re all in this together! First, AI will create fake backgrounds for our fake profile picks. Then, AI will steal our water supplies, and we will all die slow and horrible deaths! It’s inevitable!
Anyway, I’ve been reviewing movies for a long time. This is that time of the year when reviewers know we will end up taking some bad movie bats to the face.
Practical Magic 2 will have a prominent spot on my year-end SUCKED list. It has no redeeming quality, and it’s proof that if Jesus does exist, he hates you. I’m glad I used my movie club’s free movie credit to see this rather than spend any kind of money on this dog shit.