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When remembering “Practical Magic,” Griffin Dunne’s 1998 silly-spooky witchy sister movie, the image immediately conjured has to be that of “midnight margaritas.” The scene of Nicole Kidman, Sandra Bullock, Stockard Channing and Dianne Wiest — two generations of Owens sisters — dancing around a kitchen to Harry Nilsson’s “Coconut” while blending frozen cocktails is one of the most inexplicably indelible images of 1990s cinema, encapsulating the curious appeal of the film itself. The scene is goofy, weirdly enchanting and doesn’t entirely make sense, yet it’s a fun hang. That’s the whole deal with “Practical Magic” — it’s not that it’s a “good” movie, necessarily, but a fun one.
For lovers of the first film, the sequel, arriving 28 years later, will go down like one of those midnight margaritas. It hits all the familiar notes of the original, while expanding the lore considerably. Happily, Bullock and Kidman’s chemistry hasn’t waned. While Dunne’s film, based on the 1995 book by Alice Hoffman, was an exploration of an unlikely coven of suburban PTA moms overcoming fear and prejudice, the sequel sees the Owens women exploring the roots of their power and trying to break the curse that keeps them single. Thanks to an ancestor who wished to never feel the agony of love again, any man the Owens women fall in love with ends up dead.
High-strung herbalist Sally (Bullock) deals with this by walling herself off. Free-spirited Gillian (Kidman) never gets attached to any men, which was most of the drama in the first movie. But after the heartbreak she’s experienced, Sally’s had enough. She casts a spell that her daughters forget about magic and never practice again. But repression isn’t a good plan when generations-long curses run in the bloodline, because Sally’s daughter Kylie (Joey King), now a college student, has gone and fallen in love behind her mother’s back. When a bad accident befalls her boyfriend (Xolo Maridueña), a confused Kylie sets off for England with a powerful spell book to try to fix things.
Director Susanne Bier takes the reins on “Practical Magic 2,” and she’s the ideal filmmaker to helm the picture, having shepherded Bullock through the postapocalyptic horror film “Bird Box,” and Kidman through the Nantucket-set murder mystery series “The Perfect Couple.” She gets the frothy fantastical tone and brings some darker elements to the table as well. This is less “housewives with broomsticks” like the original and more “Harry Potter”-lite when it comes to witchcraft and wizardry, with mysterious visions and special effects (this may play like sacrilege for fans of the lo-fi charms of the original).
Speaking of wizards: Lee Pace clocks in as the resident hot guy, an English expert in magic, whom Aunt Fran (Channing) recommends when Sally and Gillian chase Kylie across the pond. Sally, reluctant though she is, immediately connects with the tattooed professor, even if there is a red flag or two waving. But where’s Gillian’s man? Though her wild and wanton ways may have died with Jimmy Angelov (Goran Visnjic) in the first movie, she deserves to flirt too.
In a film with three pairs of sisters, one of them is always getting the short shrift. Whether it’s Gillian living the single life with her cat or a too-brief appearance from Aunt Jet (Wiest), or Antonia (Maisie Williams) saddled with the thankless task of guarding her sister’s boyfriend’s hospital bed while Kylie romps around the ruins of England breaking centuries-old curses.
But the magic remains, especially when it comes to Bullock, who has always been the heart of these films. She hasn’t starred in a movie since 2022, and she’s just as good as she always has been at conveying the emotion of this tale as the anguished and uptight Sally, who has built protective walls out of her anxiety. When her power breaks those walls down, we see that it comes from a place of deep love and loyalty to her family. She has to learn to live a little, but she wants her daughters to live a lot.
Is it a bit cheesy? It wouldn’t be “Practical Magic 2” if it weren’t. But the midnight margaritas are still flowing, and Bullock and Kidman haven’t lost their touch yet.
Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.
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