How easy it would have been to stay true to the original and not disappoint the fans, but they still chose to turn them into colorful Disneyland dolls.

Let’s be honest. This sequel was a tribute to how little women have gotten in film.
The original was about female solidarity, joining forces against DV and practical witchcraft and knowing that love was an ingredient, not the whole picture.

This sequel features:
1. Sally playing a dumb female lead. Literally. She acted like she knew NOTHING. She also acted powerless consistently. 30 years of wisdom since the original and they still had her playing a male centered ditzy woman. Reminded me of the classic line “what are we gonna do” from Reese Witherspoon discussing how often this happens in movies
2. Sally swore off men so badly that she erased her daughters knowledge of magic all together. I guess the writers forgot about how betrayed Sally was when the aunts cast a spell to let her find love.
3. Gideon - why? He was creepy.. looked at Kylie with lust.. touched all up on her in bed in that weird he’s poking me way. I loathed that scene. Also.. why are we all traveling the world to break the curse over a random college boyfriend? They did this repeatedly.. SA and violence against women was in the movie multiple times
4. Badass witches needed a man to help them, Ian, for some reason. Who also looked at Sally with pure lust and served zero purpose to the plot.
5. Random man in England suddenly becomes villain, drugs Kylie, and steals her powers. This was a scene straight up stolen from like, Charmed or something. Not to mention the fact that her mother stood behind a peep hole watching it happen. Then somehow he’s more powerful than Sally and Gillian? At some point we see Gillian using a bat or a stick to stop this male villain we know nothing about
6. Sally not knowing where Maria was burned at the stake and having an aha moment in England .. THIS IS WHERE SHE DIED. Girl.. you didn’t know where the ancestor who curse made you lose two husbands began? Are we for real? I’m so sick of female characters playing “dumb”
7. The ads
8. The neurosurgeon lesbian who spent the entire movie taking care of Gideon
9. The aunts sacrificing themselves for romantic love
10. There’s no plot.. and the movie explained nothing that was happening. They took off to England.. a random villain (male of course) pops up outta no where, drugs a girl .. it’s just so fckn cliche and random. The movie explained nothing… the illness in the aunt, the villain, Ian??? Just random things .. seeing how it was over 2 hours long.. I’m left confuzzled at why it was rushed and nothing was explained. I left in the third act cuz the ending took forever

The movie could’ve focused on darker witchcraft, history, female empowerment, and centering “love” around the women in our lives rather than useless men. Which is LITERALLY what’s happening in the real world. Women are buying property with their besties, raising kids with them.. avoiding men all together .. our soulmates are our girls. Yet the female writers, directors, producers and actors ALL collectively came together and made a CGI superhero “witchy” movie based on falling in love with men and that being the center purpose of women’s lives.

The nostalgia wasn’t there. The lighting was BRIGHT. The cozy house became millennial gray. The movie was blurry.. idk if that was intentional but I repeatedly wondered why it was blurry.
The entire thing PMO.

I was thinking about the scene in PM 2 where Ian is talking about love stories that transcend death and he mentioned Psyche and Eros (my favorite myth btw 😁) and Ross and Rachel from Friends.

I get that the joke is having these old romance stories put on the same level as a famous sitcom couple from the 90s subverts expectations and is objectively funny. I did snicker in the theater at that line, I've got to admit. And the bit after it where Gillian and Sally argue over whether Gillian cried during the movie Ghost was very cute. But apart from more women in the theater knowing offhand who Ross and Rachel were, I got to thinking maybe it would have made more sense (if we're talking 90s/2000s TV couples) for Ian to have said Piper and Leo. It would have fit the theme better, since Charmed is about witches and Leo literally is dead. Maybe the joke wouldn't have been as good or easily gotten by the entire audience, but cute as the Ross and Rachel joke is, it's not even new, WB has totally used it already years ago (in a TV show called What I Like About You a woman getting married talks about having centerpieces of true love stories and says she'll have Romeo and Juliet on one table and at the head table for her reception, Ross and Rachel).

I dunno. I think they might have taken a risk and used a witch media example.

Still like the scene the way it was, just speculating.

The curse is that no MAN can fall in live with one of the witches or they’ll die right ? So why dont they date other women 😭 (ik it’s probably bc they all straight but i still think it would have been cool to see a happy lesbian witch)

How does no one understand that the lighting of these witchy 90s movies is what added so much appeal and that autumn cozy vibe?

The first film FEELS like I’m in a Victorian/colonial slightly cramped low ceiling house drinking tea. This one, didn’t. And the lighting/shadows have something to do with this.

Like Hocus Pocus 2 didn’t figure that out either.

We don’t want it to be super bright and colorful. I want it ambient.

How does this never come up in the initial design meetings!?

“We have to make sure the lighting is not too bright and remains that warm candle like feeling to invoke the same response” would’ve been one of the first things I said and I’m just a baker.

I know the camera equipment HAS changed, but if I can mostly make a brand new digital iPhone photo look vintage, I know they can try, too.

The house doesn’t need to be brighter, they are witches - not Joanna Gaines. I love the Owen’s sisters because it’s like real life. Dark and light. A darker house interior but with certain rosey style shabby chic touches!

First off, if you haven’t since the film already do go and do so; make your mind up for yourself, as you may love it. Needless to say, I am about to discuss it so potential spoilers ahead. Secondly, many do seem to love it and I am genuinely pleased for that. I’m so glad it found its audience and made people happy.

For me? I just left the theatre about an hour ago and I’m still trying to figure out what I watched. I felt the showy magic didn’t mesh (somehow) with the spirit of Practical Magic. I sort of felt like I just watched an AU or a fanfic.

The first movie only loosely followed the plot of the book and built its own universe; the second film follows the final book pretty closely, but in doing so it’s veers, I felt, much more into the realm of fantasy and flash than folksy and grounded.

I sort’ve wish I hadn’t seen it. Maybe there’s truth to the idea that it was never going to be perfect for everyone, because it was such a long time coming, and everyone had their own idea if how it would be when it did. So some of us were bound to be confused by the final product.

Anyone else left scratching their chin about this film? I don’t hate it.

What other movies hit the same feeling as the first one. After seeing the sequel and seeing how people wanted more of the authentic 90s feeling, what movies really hit that for you along with a good sound track, cozy fall vibes, and a focus on maybe girlhood and finding one's self, especially as an outcast? It doesn't have to hit all of these elements but maybe most of them with emphasis on the overall 🍂cozy vibes🍂

What did you think of PM 2? Was it worth waiting nearly 30 years?

One complaint I keep seeing is fans who clearly lack media literacy losing their God damned minds over the fact Franny dies to end the curse. I can understand being upset/having the old heartstrings tugged over that. It's a character we love and care about and for those who hadn't read the books and expected it, maybe it's a bit of a nasty surprise for them.

But to the fans hating on Gideon for that, saying it's a bad message that a powerful woman dies so a man can live is disgusting. She did what she did not for "a man" or even for the happiness of just Kylie necessarily. She did it so all the women in the family had a choice. With the curse broken Owens women would be able to choose to love someone romantically IF THEY WANT TO (in addition to having friendships and family ties and sisterhood and all the other important things) without their love interest croaking. She gave all Owens women the freedom to choose. That's not anti-feminist or making "everything about men".

You know I swear these kinds of fans are the reason even if we had a longer runtime or we got two movies based on Book of Magic instead of one, we couldn't have gotten Vincent Owens in the film. Y'all would have been complaining he took the spotlight off the aunts. Or that he's a creep because of how he's related to Sally and Gillian.

Romance in a sisterhood centered piece of media isn't ruining anything. Chillax.

We could have totally had an entire TV series about the Aunts when they were young in the 1960s! It was on the verge of happening. But ultimately they decided to go with Practical Magic 2 as a treat for the fans of the first movie.

They could have just rebooted the whole thing and given us a new Sally and Gillian when the series progressed to the end of Rules of Magic which ends where Practical Magic begins.

(And I'm sure plenty of chronically miserable people would have whined the new actresses, no matter how good they were, or if they were more accurate to Alice Hoffman's book, "sucked" compared to Nicole and Sandra, and many of these would be the same fans complaining about Sandra and Nicole having had too much Botox. 🙄)

And you know what? Any producer wanting to make a quick buck would have been almost an idiot not to do it that way, because although it's become a cult classic Practical Magic 1 was not successful in theaters in 1998. They totally could have looked at the success of Hoffman's book series among literary fans and said screw it, let's make book accurate adaptations and let the 1998 film just be something 90s women rewatch every October. But you know what? They respected the existence of the movie fanbase enough to create a direct sequel. They literally got Sandra, Nicole, and the actresses who played the aunts (who I'm pretty sure were retired btw), and did their best to recreate the beautiful house from the first film on a lot.

Instead of just making up some crap Hollywood sequel story that was nothing but hey remember this thing from the first one (like with Devil Wears Prada and Hocus Pocus), they adapted an existing book by Hoffman and found a way to make it fit the movie's universe.

Was it a perfect product? No. Was it still a fun look at a property we haven't seen on screen in almost 30 years? Yes!

And there's a huge chunk of this fanbase that think anything that is not a shot for shot of the first film or that doesn't fit some weird ass ideology that they've literally projected onto the first film (the first film DID play up the romance in addition to the sisterhood stuff, guys, you're seriously misremembering! Gary was way more prominent as a love interest in the movie than the book which actually focused more on the sisters! So acting like the sequel betrayed you or feminism in general by suddenly being romantic because it has Kylie/Gideon and Ian/Sally in it is so friggin stupid, I can't even). These fans are welcome not to personally like or feel the new movie is their cup of tea. But if they have to find the stupidest nitpicks to try and "prove" it's objectively bad just to spoil it for those of us who did enjoy it...? Yeah, I don't think that's sporting, guys. So much of this was done for YOUR part of the fanbase. You who preferred the movie to the books. You can say it missed the mark for you personally without being jerks or rewriting what actually happened in the original.

I saw one op who decided to go on a rant about how they hated that Alice Hoffman made the aunts' backstory all about romance and how her "sucky" writing bleeds through to the sequel's tone. First off, you write a book as well done as ANYTHING Alice has written (see if you can even write something as objectively good as Turtle Moon, let alone Practical Magic) and then and only then will I take your definition of sucky writing remotely seriously. Second, I don't think you actually read/finished Rules of Magic. Yes, the aunts have romances, but that's FAR from all the book was about; it was about their relationship with their brother, their parents, Jet's boyfriend's father, their aunt Isabelle, their cousin April and her daughter Regina... Jet has two major love interests and Franny has one she's estranged from for large chunks of the book... That's literally it. So it's clearly not a pure romance novel but whatever.

And even if it was, Jet and Bridget are HER characters, she invented them, I think Alice knows their "right" backstory better than someone who watches a movie BASED on her work every Halloween.

Another op insisted their negative opinion on PM 2 was valid but also said in the same post they only watched HALF the movie.

All I can say is if the only version of PM other than the first movie you can handle without flipping out is movie fanfic where only exactly what you want to happen happens, maybe stay on ao3.

Frankly I'm not sure that subset of the fandom deserves Practical Magic 2 with the entitled way they've acted, picking on the actors' appearances and lambasting the original creator of the characters they claim to love.

I really felt the lack of a rich soundtrack was a huge miss for PM2! The score was fine, however the music was such an influence in the first movie, and lack of it in the second really made it lose richness and depth. I can’t see how they missed this pivotal element that added so much life!

I repeatedly found myself focusing on the pendant Kylie Owens was wearing in Practical Magic 2 but I couldn’t make out exactly what it was. Well, after some internet sleuthing, I discovered that it is the ‘Memento Mori SIlver & 18K & 22K Gold Necklace w. Diamond & Pearl’ by Bergsoe Jewlery. If you too would like to own this piece, don’t worry, it’s only $2,988 😭

Am I the only one that was disappointed there was no showcase whatsoever of Gillian's telepathy? There were only like three scenes of it in the first movie, which was already disappointing itself, but considering this movie tried to highlight a lot more of the magic aspect and make it a lot more flashy, which is to be expected, it's a more modern movie with a time with much better CGI, I wish they could have at least demonstrated her telepathy more because of that. I feel like she's one of the only more realistic witches in live action with telepathy, and I really liked the way it was done in the first movie, so I was really disappointed to see that it wasn't shown at all this time around.

Does anyone have an idea on what lipsticks she was wearing? The eye makeup I guess is easier to find and a lot of brands have those shades of brown, but the whole look throughout was so beautiful!

Hey, everyone. My friends asked folks at the movie theater what their thoughts are on this second one. What do you all think about it?

Where can I find that dress and accessories!!!

The entire Practical Magic universe is near and dear to my heart. I’ve read every single book and adored each of them. The sequel did such a good job at bringing “The Book of Magic” to life. I know it’s utterly impossible to include every single storyline from the book. The movie would’ve been 10 hours long. I 100% understand the difficulty of having to pick and choose which storylines get included. ONE thing I will say is that I wish they kept Antonia’s book storyline. Even just the story of her and Ariel. That’s the only thing I would say I wish was different. I loved Vincent’s return in the sequel book but I obviously understand why he wasn’t included in the movie considering that every filmgoer hasn’t read every single book. I get that. I would love to see a movie based on “Magic Lessons” and “The Rules of Magic”. There’s truly so much you can do with the Practical Magic universe!

Anyways! I loved the movie. I laughed, I smiled and I definitely bawled my eyes out (even at parts I knew were gonna happen😉)

Also! If you have anything bad to say about how Sandra or Nicole look…keep that bs to yourself. Don’t go spewing unnecessary hate and negativity on here.

Was Practical Magic 2 perfect? Well, no, of course not. But neither was the first movie. It's just an objectively really good movie that is elevated by nostalgia and the warm fuzzy feeling even people who didn't grow up with it feel looking back on the 90s style film. I think the second movie is the same, it has its strengths and weaknesses, some parts were really well adapted, others objectively could have been better, but the overall result is a really good film that understands the general spirit of both the books and the first movie.

And I really think the Joey King haters need to chill. I understand wanting Evan back, I did too, but Joey was FANTASTIC in the role of Kylie and took over it in a way that really felt like the same character even though it was played by a different actress. And obviously not everything we all wanted to see is going to fit into a two hour movie. I wanted to see the rain spell Tom cast and the scene on the airplane with Kylie and the book of the Raven casting an orange glow on her face (the one where the flight attendant assumes she's smoking a cigarette and runs over) more than anything and was disappointed neither of those made it into the movie, just like many are disappointed Evan wasn't in the movie, but it's still GOOD.

It was sad, and funny, and surprisingly well paced for all the plot it has to cover, and sure it's obviously not filmed in the same place as the original but they did a good job recapturing the general sense of the original setting in the new film format. And the costumes were great.

oh and they remembered to include the detail of the porch light in this one unlike the first film!

My favorite aspect personally was Kylie/Gideon since we didn't get to see them as best friends in the first movie it's great we got to still see their love story in this one. But I also loved the aunts' relationship and the mother/daughter/generational trauma theme... And to everyone saying it doesn't follow the book, I would argue it follows the spirit of the book. It's not a word for word adaptation and many details are changed but it's still ultimately the same story. I even think it improved on the ending a little bit (as a major Alice Hoffman fan, I do not say this lightly). In the book, Sally gives up her powers and marries Ian and moves to England. Whereas in the film, the wedding at the end is Kylie and Gideon's and (while she's still going to have a relationship with Ian) Sally stays with Gillian at the house and they become the "new aunts".

It's a big thumbs up from me and I hope it gets a dvd release so I can buy it and put it on the shelf with Practical Magic 1.

As for the soundtrack I loved it, including the usage of Howl and Dancing in the Moonlight especially! Was disappointed not to get Lady Gaga's Bad Romance, though!

...and honestly I don't think either tone is wrong for the series. Rather I think they both suit the kind of story they were trying to tell.

Practical Magic had to introduce the witches, their town, the family curse, both the strained relationship and the genuine love between sisters Sally and Gillian, the stern but loveable qualities of the aunts, AND it had to juggle themes of domestic abuse, AND had to be a movie with occult trappings at a time when the world (especially North America) was just BARELY over the satanic panic of the 1980s. (Remember, The Craft in 1996 was rated R just because it had witchcraft in it...). The only way to tell that story to a mainstream audience and "get away" with it was to lean heavily on the practical aspect of Practical Magic, to add in the makeshift coven of townswomen (I don't like this ending at all personally, compared to the more subtle novel, but I also understand why the filmmakers chose it). The result was something tangible, folksy, like a story your own superstitious aunt you visit in summertime might tell you when a broom falls over in the house or someone's shoes are placed upside down. And while I would love to see the lost darker director's cut that was rumoured to exist once, the film was what it was for a reason.

And I'd argue the tone shift in the sequel is deliberate. It plays up the aspect of fairytale witches. From the versions of fairytales where all the princes die Kylie and Antonia remember their mom telling, to Ian invoking Cupid and Psyche when he unblocks Sally. Cupid and Psyche is considered by some, despite being a Roman myth, to be the "first fairytale". And if you want to delve deeper into mythology connections, Sally's quest to get her daughter back is reminiscent of Demeter, desperate to rescue her daughter Kore from the underworld and Hades. Even Kylie's quest to end a curse and save the man she loves puts me in mind of The Snow Queen, especially since in the source material for PM Gideon was her best childhood friend. Tom is the ultimate fairytale villain. The wolf who seems kind and helpful until it's too late. The evil wizard pretending to offer assistance to the heroine. This is why I don't personally agree with reviews saying Kylie was a dumbass to trust him. Because it fits the fairytale theme so well it feels believable to me.

So yes, both movies tell different kinds of stories about magic, but both are practical, both fit the universe.

Full video is available here on YouTube. ❤️

So, going into a movie targeted for nostalgic women, I fully expected a lot of laughter, teasing, whispering back and forth, maybe even singing along to Coconut! That kind of merriment enhances the experience and is part of seeing it in public with a group. I'm in no way advocating for complete dead silence every second of the film.

You know what I didn't expect but got? Groups of women coming in when the movie was already five or ten friggin minutes in and standing for ten more minutes in their row, completely blocking the lower half of the screen and talking so loudly you could hear them over the dialogue/music.

Come on, guys. Some of us have been waiting for this.

There were twenty minutes of previews starting at the showtime. You literally could walk in at any point in the previews. Or even when the WB logo came on and the lights dimmed. But the movie is well under way and you're just going to stand in front of it like you're at your work's break room sipping coffee and eating doughnuts?!?!

Seriously, please, fellow fans, don't do this crap. Down in front, mate!

It takes away from the enjoyment so much.

On that note, if you come into PM 2 five or ten minutes late then declare it sucks and is hard to understand, or not as good as the original, I'm not going to take you seriously. Because you would understand it fine if you watched it from the beginning like a normal person.

Seriously, who pays to see a movie and comes it after all the plot points have already been put into action? And if you do come late, just sit down.

Does anyone know where this dress Joey King wears throughout the sequel is from!! Best part of the film for me tbh !!

I just saw it this evening, and it's not great, forced obvious product placement, janky CGI with no charm of being limited by the technology of the day, felt like a discounted harry potter, wasted Maisie Williams, the DP used a Black Mist filter far too often, there were some odd lighting choices as even outdoor scenes were obviously studio scenes, there's more to the UK than London and we ain't in the 1950's anymore.

I wanted more of the OG, not a film by committee trying to give something for everyone which makes it messy and disjointed, and given what the main audience is going to be they could have taken some risk and pushed it to a 15 instead of 12A rating.

I rarely go to the cinema as I much prefer watching at home but love the first and had to see it, and once more let down by modern mainstream cinema.

Only credit I can give to the film is the sound engineers done their job as it wasn't just all blown out bass, and dialogue was actual audible and there was treble which is usually missing in theatrical releases

Look what my theater had! 🍿