“Practical Magic 2”: The Curse of the Unnecessary Sequel
It’s September, so there’s still time for some more Hollywood cash grabs before 2026 is over. This week’s victim is thirty-year-old Practical Magic, another film that did not need a sequel.
It’s official: we have reached a point where movies are so bad you can’t make fun of them anymore. Coming home from the theater and writing a snarky review of a bad movie has been one of my main sources of amusement these past few years, but lately, I’ve been feeling that films simply don’t leave me much to say.
In most cases, I know what I’ll find: the inconsistent tone, the idiotic sense of humor, the progressive winks, the lack of creativity, and the abuse of references to better films—qualities that have slowly merged most movies into the same lifeless product. The empty shell of something better.
I’m no longer indignant or mad. In fact, I’m starting to miss the days when movies could, at least, offend me. I’m just mind-numbingly bored.
And mind-numbingly bored is a faithful description of my experience watching Practical Magic 2, a sequel to a film that came out twenty-eight years ago. Why? Because Warner needed some easy money. Artistic or narrative reasons do not factor anymore. As Rachel Zegler would say, “It’s Hollywood, baby!”
What is Practical Magic 2 About?
At the end of Practical Magic, Sally and Gillian seem to have put an end to the Owens’ curse. Sally embraces her magic and gets a new chance at love with Officer Gary. The sequel starts by undoing all that: the curse is not over after all, Gary died after the wedding, and Sally has rejected magic once more and erased her daughters’ memories so they cannot remember they are witches.
But the kids grow up, and when Kylie, the oldest daughter, falls in love, her boyfriend suffers a car accident and is hospitalized in a coma. The event forces Sally to reveal the truth, and Kylie decides to travel to the land of her ancestors to find a way to break the curse before it’s too late.
The Magic of Resetting
I’m of the opinion that the original Practical Magic wasn’t that good to begin with. Yes, it’s visually more interesting than most of the films being released today (not hard to be) and makes the most of the style and charisma displayed by Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman, who were at their most beautiful at the end of the 90s. But overall, the actual story is barely enough to make a single film. Trying to stretch it into a sequel is quite a reach. And as mentioned, the sequel pushes the reset button at the very start, rendering the original film all but pointless.
The very ambiguous depiction of magic, which in the original could be brushed off as camp and quirky, becomes a real bummer when you try to expand the story. I’m not going to get into all the nonsense in detail: magic in this universe is used just when it’s convenient to the plot, and can be as powerful or weak as needed at any given moment. How the book with instructions to break the curse came into Jet’s hands, how witches die, or how the curse affects some Owens’ women differently than others, are things we will never know.
The tone of the film is all over the place: we go from Sally being on the verge of a mental breakdown because she thinks her daughter is in danger to her laughing because Gillian pulled down her pants. There are some scenes, like Jet’s and Frances’ deaths, intertwined with the rest of the nonsense for some cheap tears. Sally also gets an underdeveloped love interest that serves no purpose other than providing some filler scenes (much like in The Devil Wears Prada 2, earlier this year).
The attempts to pay homage are just as creative as we have come to expect from modern films: direct references to the original. So of course it has to end with the new generation of witches flying off the roof, and the “margarita song” is playing in Kylie’s wedding scene.
What’s left? Two hours and ten minutes of people being uninteresting on screen, making random decisions and bad jokes. Two hours and ten minutes you could save by watching something else.
Box Office Results
I can’t help but wonder about the intention behind making the sequel. We all know it is a cash grab, but if Warner wanted to feed us leftovers again, why this film? Why did they think it had potential? Practical Magic was not a hit back in the 90s, and even though television has given it a sort of cult following over the years, this is hardly the kind of project that could be sold as a blockbuster.
According to Variety, Practical Magic 2 had a budget of $75,000,000 and in its first two weekends in theaters has grossed $80,824,318 globally. The general audience commentary online has not been terrible, but it’s clear that the people watching it in theaters are not enough to make the film profitable.
Is it the worst movie to come out in 2026? No. But it’s irrelevant. Its main reason to exist (making money for the studio with minimum effort) has been frustrated; it’s not memorable, and it’s not rewatchable. In a couple of months it will be shelved on a streaming service, surrounded by other similar products of this era, ready to be forgotten. A sad commentary on the state of the film industry in the mid-2020s.
