It’s been 28 years since the first Practical Magic (1998) and, wouldn’t you know it, curses against love and love between sisters still play a role in Practical Magic 2. Not that I am complaining.

Susanne Bier (Bird Box, Serena) takes over from Griffin Dunne as director, but magically retains the original’s warm sentimentality. Credit this, perhaps, to returning screenwriter Akiva Goldsman (A Beautiful Mind) and new writing partners Georgia Pritchett (Veep) and Kelly Marcel (Venom trilogy). The film feels like a direct continuation, hampered marginally by over-lit lighting and a second-half lifted from a formulaic young adult novel.

I haven’t read Alice Hoffman’s novels, so I can’t say what happens in The Book of Magic, the fourth in her series. Given how the story moves and how scenes take shape, one expects changes aplenty. Again, for the most part, not complaining.

Love, it seems, cannot conquer all, and the Owens women are still as cursed as ever, with any man who falls in love with one destined to die within a few years.

Twenty-eight years on, the Owens sisters return in Practical Magic 2 — a nostalgic sequel that recaptures much of the original’s warmth, even if parts of it lose some of its magic

Sally Owens (Sandra Bullock), believing she had broken the curse in Practical Magic, still loses her husband, Gary (Aidan Quinn). Grief-stricken, like her ancestor Maria (Caprice Benedetti), the original witch who lost her lover, Sally casts a spell to lock her powers and make her daughters, Kylie (Joey King) and Antonia (Maisie Williams), forget their magical heritage, hoping the curse will not affect them. Sally’s naivety comes at a cost when she can no longer hear the deathwatch beetle’s ticking and clicking, foretelling death (an omen witches can hear).

Meanwhile, Jet (Dianne Wiest), one of Sally’s aunts (Stockard Channing plays the other aunt, Francis), finds the hidden The Book of Raven, which holds the secret to ending the curse.

The timing couldn’t be more opportune: Kylie’s boyfriend Gideon (Xolo Maridueña) confesses his love, only to be struck by a car and left in critical condition. With Antonia tending to him — she is studying to become a neurosurgeon — Kylie steals the book and heads to the UK to break the curse and revive Gideon.

Sally and her carefree sister Gillian (Nicole Kidman) chase Kylie, finding Ian (Lee Pace) — an academic with occult tattoos who practises witchcraft — in a near-death condition because of a powerful curse. The three search for Kylie, and this is where the film dips.

Villains from the Owens family’s past are revealed with little empathy or foreshadowing from the writers or director. The story takes a couple of unconvincing turns, streamlining, simplifying and dumbing itself down for pace and clarity. The decisions push the film squarely into young adult territory.

Slapped with a hasty but sentimental culmination that recalls the first film’s ending — perhaps to make one forget the last 20 minutes — one can overlook its middle-act missteps, because the production and cast remain as fine as in the first film.

Having just rewatched the original Practical Magic, one appreciates the near-seamless tonal and emotional continuation between the two films. Wiest, Channing, Bullock — with her klutzy comedic timing — and Kidman, all looking remarkably good for their ages, play the Owens women like a family. Though Williams and Channing are short-changed, the bond of love within this coven/family of witches, coupled with Bier’s assured directorial grip, makes Practical Magic 2 a good, though not great, nostalgic continuation.

Pulling off such a film is practically magic, in my opinion.

Playing in cinemas, Practical Magic 2 is released by Warner Bros and HKC with a U/A censor certificate for mild scenes of intimacy — the kind that cuts away at just the right time

The writer is Icon’s primary film reviewer

Published in Dawn, ICON, September 27th, 2026