Last night I went to see Practical Magic 2 and, much like The Devil Wears Prada 2, it features a lot of nostalgia (including midnight margaritas) but it doesn't quite capture the *ahem* magic of the original. After her second husband dies as a result of the Owens Curse, Sally Owens (Sandra Bullock) casts a spell to make her daughters Antonia (Maisie Williams) and Kylie (Joey King) forget that they are witches and then vows never to use magic again. Years later, Kylie tells her boyfriend Gideon (Xolo Mariduena) that she loves him and the next day he is hit by a car and falls into a coma. Gillian (Nicole Kidman) urges her sister to reveal the truth but all of her secrets cause a rift between mother and daughter. Kylie finds a powerful spellbook belonging to Jet (Dianne Wiest) and Franny (Stockard Channing) which contains an incantation to break the curse but the pertinent pages are fused together. Determined to find answers, she travels to England and the birthplace of her ancestor Maria Owens, who created the curse, but she finds another descendant (Solly McLeod) who wants her magic. Sally must embrace her magic once again, with the help of local witchcraft expert Ian Wright (Lee Pace), in order to save Kylie and break the curse. I found the story to be very convoluted and bloated with secondary characters. However, is a lot of fun to watch the straight-laced Sally and the free-spirited Gillian bicker back and forth again (there is a hilarious running bit involving all of Gillian's luggage) and Bullock and Kidman are fantastic with tremendous chemistry. My biggest complaint is that the straight-laced Antonia and the free-spirited Kylie should have been given the same opportunity to interact in order to continue the theme of sisterhood but Williams has very little screen time. I also wanted to see more of Wiest and Channing but Jet and Frannny are basically replaced by Ian to insert a romantic relationship into a movie about female empowerment. Still, die-hard fans of the first movie are sure to love it and I enjoyed it enough as a casual fan to recommend it.
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