As cumbersome and overlong as the 28-year wait between the 1998 original film and its sequel, “Practical Magic 2” serves as a next-generation reminder that sometimes the best way to let a beloved experience live on is by leaving it behind in one’s memory.
Bullock reprises her role as Sally, the older and ever more cautious of the Owens sisters. After two marriages that ended with her husband’s death because of a generations-old curse, Sally not only swears off romance but casts a spell that makes her twentysomething daughters Kylie (Joey King) and Antonia (Maisie Williams) forget they they’re in a family of witches. When Kylie’s boyfriend Gideon (Xolo Maridueña) gets critically injured shortly after she confesses her love for him, Gillian (Kidman) forces her sister to reveal the truth about the Owens women, causing a rift between a lovestruck daughter and a mother who wants only to protect her from heartbreak.
Sally’s widowhood and Gideon’s coma are necessary both for the plot of “Practical Magic 2,” but also to ensure that the focus remains on the Owens women. In the time between the two films, Sally and Gillian have gone from finishing each other’s thoughts to constantly interrupting each other’s sentences, an evolution in their sibling dynamic that’s true to life, but considerably less charming than the script (by Akiva Goldsman, Georgia Pritchett and Kelly Marcel) presumes. Yet while the film features one scene after another of its female characters unblinkingly supporting one another, it oddly sidelines Jet, Franny and Antonia in favor of Ian, a hunky intellectual ripped straight from the cover of a romance novel.
