“Practical Magic 2” hit the theaters nearly 30 years after the original film. Photo courtesy of Warner Bros.
by MIKE ORLOCK
Once upon a time in Hollywood, a hit movie might spawn a sequel or two in the aftermath of its release, then maybe a remake or reboot a few years later – which explains why we have so many Spider-Man movies to choose from these days.
Sequels, if successful, sometimes grew into series, and series into franchises, leaving studio execs dreaming of box-office nest eggs hatching into huge year-end bonuses.
Then COVID-19 happened, and the movie biz was knocked for a proverbial loop.
That’s when the “legacy sequel” took root, following the enormous returns for a movie called Top Gun: Maverick, a 2022 sequel to the 1986 Tom Cruise hit Top Gun.
Legacy sequels weren’t remakes and certainly not reboots, because they brought back as many original cast members as were still breathing. They were intended to reconnect audiences with memorable characters from bygone eras.
Once producers realized the potential windfall awaiting them just for resurrecting old material, we audiences were treated to Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, 38 years after Beetlejuice; Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, 30 years after Beverly Hills Cop III; Freakier Friday, 23 years after Freaky Friday; and just recently, The Devil Wears Prada 2, 20 years after the Devil’s original runway walk in designer duds.
Now we have another legacy sequel requiring our memories to kick into overdrive to make sense of what we’re watching and why. Practical Magic 2 (PG-13), once again starring Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman, Stockard Channing and Dianne Wiest, is legacy to the 1998 release Practical Magic.
That film, adapted from a novel by Alice Hoffman, told the story of the Owens family up Boston way, the women of which were witches cursed with an ancient spell cast by an ancestor that boomeranged on her unfortunate descendants, causing them all sorts of relationship trouble.
It seems any man unlucky enough to fall in love with an Owens woman was doomed to die, regardless of whether that Owens gal would like him to stick around.
Channing and Wiest, as Aunt Frances and Aunt Jet, are the matriarchs of the Owens coven, but the true stars of both films are Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman as sisters Sally and Gilly, respectively. Sally is the more prudent and responsible of the two, frequently coming to the rescue of Gilly, who uses witchcraft to spice up every relationship she can conjure with bad boys and dangerous men, regardless of the risk.
Practical Magic 2, also adapted from an Alice Hoffman novel titled The Book of Magic, finds the Owens women living in close quarters, but of two different minds. Aunts Frances and Jet and sister Gilly embrace their heritage as witches, helping neighbors with a spell or two here and there as they seek to avoid involving any innocents with the consequences of the curse afflicting the family, which they seemingly can’t figure out how to break.
Sally, meanwhile, having suffered the loss of the love of her life, is consumed with raising her daughters, Kylie and Antonia (played as young women by Joey King and Maisie Williams), as “normal” kids, rejecting witchcraft altogether. Her girls recognize that their Great Aunts and Aunt Gilly are a bit odd and eccentric, but they have no idea that magic runs in their veins or that any boy they might fall for is getting more than he bargained for – until tragedy strikes, sending Kylie off to England in an attempt to save her intended, Gideon (Xolo Maridueña), who lies in hospital, near death.
The original Practical Magic was directed by actor-comedian Griffin Dunne, who flirted with the supernatural aspects of the story as a way to spice the romantic comedy tropes inherent in the material. Practical Magic 2 is directed by Oscar-winning Danish filmmaker Susanne Bier, who has a more sober view of things, as evident in such films as Things We Lost in the Fire, In a Better World and Bird Box (a post-apocalyptic thriller which starred Sandra Bullock). The hocus pocus on display in this film comes with a cost that the Owens women are forced by circumstances, each in her own way, to pay.
Bier’s exploration of serious themes such as family betrayal and deception, in what otherwise might have been a generic comedy romance, makes this film more resonant and involving than the previous one. As the Owens women attempt to rescue Kylie from forces over which she has no understanding or control, involving two different men who also dabble in the black arts (played by Lee Pace and Solly McLeod), Practical Magic 2 becomes a practical guide in how to survive magic as well as use it to make the world a better place, against all odds. That’s a legacy worth keeping.
Practical Magic 2 is currently in theaters, doing brisk business, a testament to the enduring box-office muscle of Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman. If you’re interested in seeing it, I would do a refresher by watching Practical Magic first. You can find that film streaming on HBO Max, where you will also find this sequel streaming sometime later this year.
In another lifetime, Mike Orlock wrote film reviews for the Reporter/Progress newspapers in the western suburbs of Chicago. He has also taught high school English, coached basketball and authored five books of poetry. He finished his two-year term as Door County’s poet laureate in early 2023.
