It has been twenty-five whole years since Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock cast a spell on the world and made us fall in love with the beautiful, albeit mysterious, Owens sisters. Now, they’re back on the big screen for Practical Magic 2, a sequel most 90s babies and film buffs might have an emotional attachment to. But are we simply feeling nostalgic, or is the movie truly worth the franchise and your time?

The Plot

If you’re wondering whether you need to watch the first movie before diving into this one, don’t worry. The first ten minutes of Practical Magic 2 will catch you up on everything you need to know.

Gillian (Kidman) and Sally (Bullock) narrate the Owens women’s generational curse: anyone they fall in love with is doomed to an untimely death, thanks to their ancestral matriarch Maria Owens, who cast a bitter spell of self-protection after having her heart broken.

Sally’s first husband died because of the curse, and we’re told that her second husband, Gary (Aidan Quinn), whom we all fell in love with in the first movie, also suffered a cruel fate. Heartbroken, Sally wiped her daughters’ memories of their heritage as descendants of a long line of powerful witches. She eventually started living a “normal” life and denying her powers, much to the disappointment of her free-spirited sister, who fully embraced hers.

Because she’s an uptight mother, Sally’s daughters Kylie (Joey King) and Antonia (Maisie Williams) have a hard time opening up to her. Which is why Kylie keeps it a secret that she’s dating someone. But after her boyfriend gets into an accident and ends up in the hospital, Sally and Gillian are forced to reveal the truth to the young women.

Distraught over her boyfriend’s potential demise, Kylie takes it upon herself to figure out how to break the curse. And so, off the happy family goes to London.

The Good

One of the things you’ll notice in the first movie is how little we actually get to see of the Owens sisters’ powers. They’re supposedly an incredibly powerful line of witches, but the most we really saw was them exorcising Gillian’s ex-boyfriend. This time around, we get a little more magic, which is satisfying. That’s what twenty-five years of special effects will do for you.

But Practical Magic has always been about more than the Owens women’s powers. At its heart, it’s a story about love and sisterhood. The famous “My blood, your blood, our blood” pact is still very much alive, and this movie doubles down on it. Sally and Gillian always have each other’s backs, and now they have Kylie’s, too.

Stockard Channing and Dianne Weist also reprise their roles as Franny and Jet Owens. To the movie’s credit, the story didn’t just discard the elder Owens sisters and leave their stories in the first movie. They had big roles to fill in Practical Magic 2, ones that would make any viewer put a hand on their chest and maybe shed a few tears.

The movie also makes a few good points. Quite frankly, it shows how there’s no good that can come from keeping family history a secret and denying your own power. Sally believed she was acting out of love for her children when she erased their memories of being witches. But that very act of “love” put them in danger when they grew up. She was so afraid of being hurt that she stopped looking for answers to break the curse and instead let it take over her whole life. Kylie, meanwhile, knew there was so much more to fight for and was willing to take the chance to break the curse.

The Bad

For all its 21st-century charms, Practical Magic 2 does have its faults. Joey King’s Kylie, for one, feels like a character who doesn’t have that much depth to begin with. She doesn’t even bat an eye when she discovers she comes from a family of witches and goes on a quest halfway across the world to save her dying boyfriend. Who does that? The Owens women, apparently.

And poor Maisie Williams. She doesn’t get much screen time or much of an agenda beyond the hospital scenes where all she does is pace around the room.

And then there’s Thandruil—erm—Lee Pace as Professor Ian Wright, the academic and magic historian who helps the Owens sisters find Kylie. While Pace is always a joy to look at, his role in the movie amounts to little more than that of a side character. Frankly, one we could’ve done without.

As for the “villain” in this story, he’s clumsy, forgettable, and mostly there as a plot device. But he did cement our opinion that no good will come from giving men powers.

The Verdict

While the movie will get you into theaters—or have you waiting for a digital release—solely for the nostalgia of it all, Practical Magic 2 doesn’t really offer anything new. We’d go so far as to say it feels like another lazy stab at moviemaking built on the trusted nostalgia of the aging cast members. Be that as it may, as far as movies made for nostalgia go, this one still feels a lot like coming home to the version of you when you first watched the OG movie in the early 2000s.

Is it worth watching on the big screen? Sure, if you like cozy films about sisterhood and family, and if you want to see Lee Pace on the silver screen again. A feel-good movie like Practical Magic 2 is a much-needed entertainment break from all the craziness of the real world, after all. But it also wouldn’t matter if you sat this one out, saved your money, and simply waited for it to hit a streaming site.

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