Practical Magic 2 opens with a 34% Rotten Tomatoes rating
The sequel to the 1998 film has earned a 34% “rotten” score from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, while audience metrics are still pending.
Warner Bros. released the sequel to the 1998 fantasy-romance Practical Magic on Thursday in preview screenings, with a nationwide theatrical opening scheduled for Friday. Early critic reviews on Rotten Tomatoes give the film a 34% “rotten” rating based on 32 reviews, and the site has not yet posted audience or user scores.
The sequel, adapted from Alice Hoffman’s 2021 novel The Book of Magic, follows the Owens sisters, played by Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman, as they travel to the United Kingdom to lift a family curse affecting one of Sally’s daughters. Director Susanne Bier returns with a cast that includes returning actors Stockard Channing and Dianne Wiest, as well as Lee Pace, Maisie Williams, Joey King and others.
Critics highlighted the leads’ chemistry but criticized the screenplay and overall execution. > "Even when cursed with a substandard script, Bullock and Kidman still cast quite the spell," wrote Liz Shannon Miller of Consequence. > "This late sequel delivers a retread of the signposts that made the original a beloved fixture for certain moviegoers, while failing to correct the flaws that made everyone else all but forget it for three decades," summarized Variety’s Todd Gilchrist. > "Kidman and Bullock are superstars. The film yearns to be viewed as stylishly earnest. But no one's seemingly sat down to properly think through what story deserves to be told about these characters nearly three decades down the line," noted Clarice Loughrey of the Independent.
A minority of reviewers offered positive notes, with USA Today’s Brian Truitt praising Bier’s direction for adding darker, unconventional elements, and The Guardian’s Adrian Horton describing the film as casting a “peculiar spell.”
The original Practical Magic holds a 30% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes but a 73% audience rating, and it earned $51.2 million against a $75 million production budget. The sequel’s commercial performance remains uncertain.