Review: Practical Magic 2

Practical Magic 2 is a bit of an unusual cinema release in 2026. The 1998 original was a (somewhat) lightweight hangout movie - plus a crime drama, plus a bunch of other things. These days those films tend to exist on streaming platforms, unless there's a good reason to get fans up off the couch. Maybe fans of the original will bring their daughters along to pass on the torch of midnight dance-drinking?

At the end of the first film it was hoped that the curse hanging over the Owens family - that if any of them fell in love, the object of that love would die - had been broken. Aiden Quinn is not back for this film, so that's a nope.

Sally Owens (Sandra Bullock) remains opposed to the family's magical heritage and has managed to keep her daughters - Kylie (Joey King) and Antonia (Maisie Williams) - from the dark(ish) arts, even as their aunts Francis (Stockard Channing) and Jet (Dianne Wiest) have been using their powers to help out the local community on the small Massachusetts island where they live.

As for Sally's sister Gilly (Nicole Kidman), she's still a free spirit, out for a good time because falling in love will just plant another body in the local graveyard. Unfortunately nobody told Kylie this, and when her boyfriend Gideon (Xolo Mariduena) turns up for Jet's birthday party, bad news is not far behind. 

Thanks to a magic book and some extra family turmoil, Kylie is soon heading over to the UK to try and reverse the family curse. Sally and Gilly (and Gilly's luggage) are soon in hot pursuit (Antonia, a medical student, gets stuck watching Gideon's comatose body). But is Professor Ian Wright (Lee Pace) all he seems? Well, he is naked when they find him so he's got nothing to hide there.

It's rare to say a movie's big problem is that it has too much story, but even pushing past two hours this feels like it's skimming over things at more than one point. We should be getting to spend time with some fun characters, not checking off plot points; while Gilly does fairly well as the (mostly) comedy sidekick, Sally rarely gets time to come out of her shell, even once Professor Wright starts to warm things up. 

While the three generations of sisters all have magic powers to some extent, the power of sisterhood - you know, hanging out and laughing and dancing and so on - gets at least as much screentime as magically slamming cupboards and shooting force beams out of your hands. Which is to say, not as much as it should.

The older aunts do their best with their limited screen time (Wiest is especially strong), while it's hard not to feel a little sorry for the largely sidelined Antonia - hopefully they're planning a medical-themed magical spin off (why hasn't someone tried to make a medical drama where the doctor has magical powers? Seems like a winner). 

It's too drawn out to be a fun hang, and Kidman's bubbly performance overshadows Bullock's more angsty turn, but it doesn't disgrace the original. Which is a pretty low bar, let's be honest, and this does replicate many of the original's problems: a messy story, a haphazard approach to magic (do you need to cast spells? Not really), stop-start pacing, and a lack of awareness of the strengths of the material.

The real magic here is good vibes; no wonder the grumpy bummer bad guy, who keeps prattling on about revenge (so much so that at one stage his big victory monologue is actually faded out so the women can talk) comes off as a real loser.

- Anthony Morris 

 

Review: The Dog Stars

It's reassuring to see a movie that reminds us that, even after the apocalypse, there's always going to be poor people wanting to steal our stuff. So ingrained are these fears that in The Dog Stars they outlast America itself: society has vanished in every way, and yet crime gangs wanting something for nothing remain.

A few years on from a flu pandemic that pretty much wiped out humanity, Hig (Jacob Elordi) has a pretty sweet deal going. Living on an airfield with his gruff hetrosexual life partner Bangley (Josh Brolin), he flies his plane into depopulated Denver to collect supplies, occasionally hangs out with a isolated religious community that take in surviving children - nothing dodgy there - and then comes home to chill out, have a beer, play cards, and occasionally shoot intruders before they have a chance to speak.

While Bangley is digging the survivalist vibes of their way of life, Hig is still depressed over the death of his wife and is hoping there's other survivors out there. The occasional radio message from Grand Junction, combined with a crime gang attack that hits a little too close to home, sends him flying off on a one-way trip to try and reconnect with someone.

One of the few strengths of this film is that it (often) sticks to an aggressively low-key approach to things. Yes, there are roving bands of kill-crazy lunatics; later on there's what is basically an Indian (as in, Cowboys & Indians) war party, and if you're wondering if any survivors have gone insane and turned into cannibals, that is also a box that is eventually ticked.

(none of which makes much sense, as we're repeatedly shown that almost everyone died pretty quickly, leaving behind everything a roving band of killers could want without having to bother with the killing part) 

But this also features a lengthy period where the main drama is "will Hig be able to pull up a bunch of tree stumps?". No spoilers, but we're so used to these stories ending in some kind of climactic battle that when this instead focuses on re-establishing a new status quo its almost unsettling in its refusal to put lives on the line.

That doesn't make it a good film though. The action scenes are competent until you notice that they're gleefully dehumanising the attackers in a way that's more than a little problematic. It's the story of a group of people who have a lot, shooting anyone who comes on their property and burning their bodies (yeah, that smoke isn't going to be a giveaway either). Early on it feels like it's going to question that dynamic, but then Hig just flies off.

The Dog Stars ends up a strange and not exactly satisfying mix of post-apocalyptic genres. For long stretches it wants to be about people trying to figure out how to keep going when everyone they loved is dead, then those same people make a bunch of other people dead because that's just what you do after the world ends.  

There's a more interesting and impactful film inside this one, buried just a little too deep for any dog to dig out.

- Anthony Morris 

 

Review: Spa Weekend

Spa Weekend is a bit of a throwback - well, every comedy that makes it to the big screen these days is a throwback, the golden age of big screen comedy now being firmly a decade or more in the rear view. But it's the kind of "we got a bunch of comedians together and let them improv scenes" comedy that once ruled the roost... and then wore out its welcome. Have lessons been learnt? 

Well, kind of. After a premise-establishing prologue in which all four main characters are set in stone as kids, we jump forward to today to see how they're coping with adulthood. Short answer: not well.

Jane (Leslie Mann) is a high powered lawyer so snowed under with work and single motherhood that when a cute lawyer hits on her she can't schedule a date for the next three months. Sophie (Anna Farris) works for a controlling boss who is basically a man-baby, Coco (Michelle Buteau) has anger issues that destroyed her relationship to her nice guy ex, and Mel (Ilsa Fisher) is... seemingly in France, which is where everyone would like her to stay because she's a maniac.

With Jane's birthday coming up, Coco and Sophie gently nudge her towards the idea of a spa weekend. Nobody really wants Mel to ruin the vibe, so she's out. The resort is luxe (it was filmed on the Gold Coast), the vibe is chill, and is the hot yoga teacher (Adam Demos) checking Jane out?

Isla Fisher is first in the credits so no surprise she turns up. Sophie felt bad for not inviting her and who thought she'd fly in from France? Now it's a real party, in that every single relaxation session they're booked in for dissolves into chaos. Not that "goat yoga" could really have gone any other way.

Written and directed by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore (The Hangover), this is a wobbly mix of luxury resort porn and wacky comedy that never fully invests in either. Somewhat surprisingly, this is a good thing: the comedy remains at least slightly grounded, and the fancy settings are occasionally worth checking out when the laughs falter. Which they do on a regular basis.

The best thing here is the performances, which are likable across the board and (mostly) restrained enough to avoid being painful when the jokes fall flat. None of these characters have more than the one dimension, but there's just enough going on to make their predictable plights slightly engaging.

If that all sounds like damning with faint praise, that's because it is. This is a comedy that's as beige as the resort surroundings - presumably as the result of some heavy editing, as there's the occasional hint that originally things might have been a bit more out there (there's one reference to Mel bringing a lot of cocaine with her, but aside from a party montage it's never shown).

This is a film that knows its audience: middle aged people who in theory like to laugh but in practice just want to be distracted from the real world for 90 minutes or so. It's a low bar to clear, but it just about manages it. Hopefully every single person in this film got to take a break afterwards, because after this they all deserve a real holiday.

- Anthony Morris 

Review: Insidious: Out of the Further

One of the fun things about the Insidious franchise is that none of the lore matters in any way. There's a place where all the evil dead people go and they like messing with the living: now you're all caught up. 

In fact, remembering the previous five films only gets in the way of the spooky thrills here - you don't want to be wondering what happened to Angus Sampson and Leigh Whannell's low-rent Ghostbusters when you should be scanning every inch of the screen for creepy figures in the background that shouldn't be there.

After a prologue that makes it very clear she had a very messed-up childhood, we meet the adult Gemma (Amelia Eve), who is making a whole lot of very basic life mistakes when it comes to living in a world where evil ghosts are real. 

Not only is she still living in the house where her crazy mother killed herself, she has all her mum's stuff boxed up in the garage, refusing to either deal with it or throw it out. Even worse, she's a dental nurse; if you're at all squeamish about teeth, there are multiple scenes here that are not for you.

Despite that, everything seems to be going smoothly for her and her daughter Maya (Island Austin) on the streets of suburban Melbourne (pretending to be Pittsburgh) until a very odd-looking trio of weirdos move into the neighbourhood and start grinning at her. Suddenly she's having the kind of nightmares that blend seamlessly with reality, Maya is starting to freak out at the way her mother is falling apart, and is history about to repeat itself? 

Not if Elise Rayne (Lin Shaye) has anything to do with it. Being dead hasn't stopped the psychic from stepping up in previous installments - she's the only real link to the other films here - and when she shows up in one of Gemma's dreams it's clear that what the single mother's experiencing isn't just the result of a too-spicy late night snack. 

Not only is she being pulled into The Further (the place where evil ghosts hang out), but the malevolent yet snazzily-dressed spirits have a serious reason for their interest in her. Now if she doesn't figure out a way to stop them, they just might be able to use her as a way back into the real world. Which would be bad for just about everyone, especially as it seems some ghosts come with working shotguns (are the guns also dead?). 

None of this is especially fresh or though-provoking, but it does hold together as a story. That bumps it a notch above the usual "ghosts are real and / or people are being possessed" Blumhouse thriller. The random jumpscare sequences early on have a point to them, the bad guy has an actual plan beyond "be scary", and there's just enough twists to get you moderately invested in the outcome.

In a great year for inventive horror, this competent but overly familiar thriller only occasionally rises to the challenge. There are a few memorable sequences (getting lost in a seemingly endless couch cushion fort, some squirmy dental horror) and exactly one decent joke. There's also a lot of tattoo'd fruit, which makes less sense the more you think about it, even if Elise's conduit to the land of the living is a psychic tattoo artist (Maisie Richardson-Sellars).

As it's gone on, the Insidious series has lost the giddy edge that made the initial installments stand out. Now the scares are merely solid, the characters basic and rote; even if you don't remember the previous films, you'll feel like you've seen it all before. It's a nightmare where even the living are trapped in an eternal repetitious loop.

- Anthony Morris 

 

Review: One Night Only

One Night Only is a film about two very different things, and there are a lot of good reasons why they don't go well together. It's possible to see why someone might have thought the idea of bringing these two things together could have resulted in a winning film, but this particular take on the concept never commits one way or the other. It's too much but not enough, which is never a good start to a relationship.

The more charitable reading here is this: at a moment where the pressure is on the have sex, and in a world that seemingly values the physical act above all else, two young people gradually realise they want to build a relationship on something more than just a physical act. Sounds like a winner? Hang on a second.

To judge this film purely based on that reading - we'll get to the problems in a minute - it's a moderately entertaining take on the timeworn "one crazy night" genre. Our two leads - pizza store proprietor Owen (Callum Turner), and advertising jingle singer with slightly bigger dreams Allie (Monica Barbaro) - both start the night with firm romantic plans, only to have things repeatedly thrown into disarray even as they keep running into each other.

The jokes are good (not great) and the pair have decent chemistry without ever being overwhelmingly convincing as lovers. Which works for the story - it's meant to be something of a slow burn. If it didn't have a completely insane hook it would be the kind of film that vanishes without trace, a slightly sweet, occasionally silly take on two people falling in like.

Problem is, this film has a hook that is, as previously mentioned, completely insane: in a near-future US that looks identical to today, the government has made premarital sex illegal. But don't worry - to keep all the unmarried fornicators on board, the law is lifted once a year for 12 hours. Hurrah?

The idea is that while everyone else is rutting like rabbits, Owen and Allie discover a deeper connection through being forced by various wacky situations to wait. Turns out it's harder to get laid on a night when everyone is looking to get laid than you might think; Allie keeps meeting creeps, Owen keeps getting interrupted, it seems premarital sex is only allowed with a condom and they now cost a hundred bucks each.

The trouble is that "being forced to wait" is exactly the thinking behind this horrifically repressive situation. Which means the film ends up suggesting that a law that prevents people from doing what they want with their own bodies is... good? It's Keep it in Your Pants: The Movie.

If this was just explained in an opening crawl and never mentioned again, it's possible One Night Only could have worked as just a slightly weird rom-com. But it's constantly mentioned throughout the film in ways that are impossible to ignore. We even learn how it's enforced: everyone is implanted with a sex chip that turns green when it's legal to have sex and reports you to the cops if you try to get it on at any other time. Wow, how romantic.

This is such a bleakly repressive situation that the fact people aren't constantly rioting in the streets becomes a plot hole. There is a lot of anti "mandate" graffiti around the place, but we're told this Sex Purge has been going on for three years now and it doesn't seem like sex-starved youth have been assassinating high level government officials on a regular basis, which feels a little implausible.

It's possible all this is a very dark joke at people's ability to adapt to and accept nightmarish political situations. But this never really spells it out in a way that suggests there's more going on here than what it seems. That is to say, it seems to be a romantic comedy built around a premise that sounds entertainingly silly until you start to think about it. 

Which means One Night Only's big problem is one that's ruined a lot of casual sex: overthinking it.

- Anthony Morris 

Review: Spider-Man: Brand New Day

What puts Peter Parker, your friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man, ahead of the pack when it comes to super-heroics, is angst. He doesn't just have to deal with villainy in all its super-powered forms, he's got a crushing burden of guilt weighing him down. He knows that with great power comes great risks to those around him - which is where the latest Spider-Man film begins.

Having wiped the world's memory of who he is at the end of the last film, and with Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) now six feet under, Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is very much on his own. Fortunately, he still has his secret identity as Spider-Man to keep him going, and for the last three or so years fighting crime has been his whole, entire, kind of depressing life.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is more episodic than usual, and the early scenes are pretty much an extended opening montage showing the new status quo. Spidey fights crime, Spidey is lauded as a hero (New York really loves this guy), Spidey puts flowers on Aunt May's grave, Spidey lives in a bit of a dump, and Spidey's connection on the force - Jean DeWolff (Liza Colon-Zayas) - appreciates his commitment but maybe he could take a break once in a while.

It's the lack of former besties MJ (Zendaya) and Ned (Jacob Batalon) in his life that's really getting him down, and watching their dopey social media content as they climb the rungs at MIT isn't really helping. The plan was for Parker to reveal his identity to MJ after the spell, but that never happened; now he just hangs onto the note he was going to use to get her back. 

It's not until a runaway tank and an encounter with Frank Castle, aka The Punisher (Jon Burnthal) that the story finds its feet. There's a new bad guy in town, one who has the ability to possess a person - and then jump from one mind to the next, moving from body to body. What they want is a bit of a mystery, but they seem to be targeting Damage Control, the organisation that cleans up after superhero battles and tries to turn bad guy technology (and the bad guys themselves) into a force for good.

Things start to come together when the face of the mysterious psychic jumper (Sadie Sink) is revealed and the threat becomes more focused on Parker himself. Meanwhile, he's starting to notice some weird side effects from his spider-DNA: maybe he's finally becoming a man... well, a spider-man.

This is very much a MCU movie featuring Spider-Man; other cameos that aren't spoilers include the new Black Widow (Florence Pugh) and Dr Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), while The Punisher steps up to the role of sidekick in the second half of the film. It's what you expect from Marvel (well, a Marvel / Sony co-production) - it's not like previous films didn't have big casts - but it does leave this feeling a little like a film of two halves.

The MCU stuff is consistently solid, if rarely inspired. The action scenes are varied and well-constructed (though the CGI does leave some fights a little weightless), the many scenes with Spidey swinging across NYC are at times exhilarating, and who doesn't love cameos? The double act that develops between Spider-Man and The Punisher is especially well handled: looks like Parker's finally got himself a big brother, even if he is a gun-toting maniac.

It's the personal side of things that stands out, thanks in large part to a thoughtful and nuanced performance from Holland and some much-needed emotional grounding from Zendaya . Parker's plight is a typical young adult's writ large: he's left school, his school friends have moved on without him, and while he's committed to his job he's otherwise feeling lost. And he's also going through some physical changes, so better late than never there.

These two halves eventually overlap when MJ gets involved, but they still largely run parallel instead of merging into one. What ties them together is Parker, but it still feels like he has problems at work and then also problems at home: just because they're both happening at the same time to the same guy doesn't make them the same story.

With the sheer size of the MCU, and Spider-Man now one of the franchise's old stalwarts, it's hardly surprising there's a lot packed in here. What is surprising is that it works as well as it does. The previous installment may have done a better job of juggling an over-stuffed cast, but this still keeps it together. It's a film of memorable moments rather than a coherent whole, like a bunch of fun scenes suspended in a web.

- Anthony Morris 

Review: The Odyessy

Since the days of Memento, Christopher Nolan hasn't been much of a fan of linear storytelling. That works in his favour here: most of us know the broad strokes of Homer's Odyessy, and right from the beginning - where a storyteller begins to tell the story of the ten year Trojan War, only to be told we've already heard that one - he leans into the fractured timeline of the original and shuffles the cards. The first time we even see Odysseus (Matt Damon), his story is almost over... well, apart from one important bit.

So there are a few timelines here. In one, Odysseus' wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) and her not-quite-of-age son Telemachus (Tom Holland) have to endure a hall full of rowdy freeloading suitors, each there to claim her hand once she finishes weaving her grandfather's shroud and admits her husband is never coming home. Sleazy Antinous (Robert Patterson) is first amongst equals here, though his decent facade crumbles the more we see of him and the more his desire to claim the throne and dispose of Telemachus comes to the surface.

In another, it's the dying days of the Trojan War, with a big wooden horse left behind on a seemingly abandoned beach. This feels like the kind of thing we could probably gloss over, but we keep returning to it - often at the prompting of various veterans of the war. There's a deeper meaning behind all this recollection, though it does also provide some thrilling action sequences.

Occasionally we check in with an aged Odysseus, wandering a beach collecting driftwood while a mysterious woman (Charlize Theron) watches on. He's trying to remember his past, and she's both helpful and fearful of what he may learn. Maybe have a bit more lotus and we'll check back in the morning.

And then there's the younger Odysseus and his crew trying to get home after the war is won. When everyone else strikes out along the established trade routes, Odyessus thinks he knows better (and after figuring out how to win the war,  he's clearly got a bit of hubris going on). Soon they're lost, raiding coastal towns where the residents are increasingly worried about lawless "sea people" and landing on islands where you probably have a pretty good idea what awaits.

As far as Gods and magic goes: no to the former, aside from the occasional cameo from Athena (Zendaya), and yes to the latter. People believe in the Gods or they don't, and their workings are through nature and the hearts of men. But there are giants, monsters, and witches in this version of the story - and no version of The Odyessy would be complete without a trip to Hades.

The afterlife here is - as in the original - a bleak, dour place, and while the idea of any kind of faithful version of The Odyessy is silly at best (even in the original Greek, Homer didn't write a screenplay) this largely stays close to the broad strokes of the classic. So much so that at times it almost feels like the story is forcing Nolan to be more overtly entertaining than he's recently been: a lot of the crowd-pleasing stuff is in here, and it works just like it has for the last three thousand years.

That said, Nolan does work in his own take on what it's all about, though he merely adds new angles rather than outright rewriting the classic. Odysseus here has an extra new-ish reason for maybe not rushing directly home; people talk about the end of their "civilisation" as if the Trojan War has shattered its very foundations. There's even a callback (call forward?) to The Lord of the Rings if you want to see it.

But anyone looking for links to today (specifically, the USA and its military culture post 9/11) won't have to look hard; there's an awful lot of veterans wandering around in this story, using your wealth to get out of military service isn't a good look, and once you value results over the basic rules of society that society is in serious trouble. 

All that aside, this is a thrilling story skillfully told. By it's very nature the story is episodic, but each strand is equally compelling and the almost three-hour run time flies by. Some scenes are a little wordy (the modern-ish dialogue works fine), but there's plenty of near-silent action, and Ludwig Goransson's soundtrack is blunt and powerful.

Not every big name in the star-stuffed cast (including Samantha Morton, Elliot Page, John Leguizamo, Lupita Nyong'o and John Burnthal) gets a lot to work with, but pretty much everyone gets a moment to shine bright - well, maybe Theron is a little short changed. And Damon acquits himself well, though his version of Odysseus isn't so much cunning as annoyed everyone else doesn't realise he's right.

Whether you're here for stunning visuals, exciting monster action, creepy witchcraft, a thoughtful meditation on the importance of rules or just the original payback warrior taking out the trash, The Odyessy brings it all home.

- Anthony Morris