Practical Magic

LA Weekly Hazel-Dawn Dumpert

Dunne is committed, thank good-ness, unapologetic for even the most fluttery sentiment or spookiest chill, enjoying the swellness of the very idea almost as much as any fanciful girl.

The New York Times Elvis Mitchell

Based on Alice Hoffman's fanciful novel and directed with go-for-broke prettiness by Griffin Dunne, Practical Magic is nothing but a guilty pleasure.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Lively acting, eye-catching cinematography, and funny dialogue lift this fantasy a notch above the average until love-story cliches and horror-movie shocks bog it down.

Salon.com Laura Miller

Like the rest of this new breed of witch story, it's about sisterhood instead of the supreme allure of housewifery, but like all too many witch movies (old and new), it's really just a self-congratulatory paean to banality and shrunken horizons.

Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector

Though its startling shifts in tone sometimes seem unmotivated, this dark yet syrupy 1998 romance has an adolescent charm.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Unfortunately, like far too many films, this one gives up the ghost during the last fifteen minutes, saddling an otherwise-enjoyable film with a dumb ending.

Empire Angie Errigo

It tootles along being cute and fluffy like a twentysomethings' version of Sabrina The Teenage Witch, but to further its notions of sisterhood and the power of women, it also takes a spin through Thelma And Louise territory, then revisits The Exorcist to up the supernatural content. It's enough to make your head spin.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

It's all swell, though after two hours of nonstop yin energy, one does begin to wish that someone like Bruce Willis might show up in a sweaty T-shirt, scratching himself.

San Francisco Examiner Edvins Beitiks

The cast and crew and screenwriters seem to have had some fun with it, and the audience, coming along for the ride, has some fun with it, too.

Austin Chronicle Russell Smith

It's just a little too ironic (to quote Okay Pop Singer Alanis Morrisette) that a movie with the word "magic" in its title should be such a perfect example of the difference between competence and inspiration.

Washington Post Eve Zibart

It's not that the movie isn't fun in spots; it's just a TV-ready mix of camp and curdle.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The movie doesn't seem sure what tone to adopt, veering uncertainly from horror to laughs to romance.

Los Angeles Times Jack Mathews

It just doesn't add up to anything -- or break down -- to anything special. For good or bad, there's hardly a memorable scene in it.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

Its flat whimsy, VH1-ready musical montage sequences, and less-than-magic magic realism will probably not be enough to hold the attention of all but the most undiscriminating fans of witches and Stockard Channing.

Village Voice Dennis Lim

The title is, to say the least, an understatement. Witchcraft has rarely looked more prosaic and less sexy than it does in Griffin Dunne's Practical Magic.

The New Yorker Sarah Kerr

Griffin Dunne's plodding adaptation of Alice Hoffman's novel can't decide whether it's a horror show, a cute comedy, or a soap opera.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

With the performers given zilch to perform, the result is a picture that's all chassis and no engine, or, in the parlance of the genre, a bunch of pointy hats in search of a transporting broomstick.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

You can see the outline of an interesting movie beneath the cutesy-pie characterizations and heavy-handed mockery of small-town small-mindedness, but any chance it might have had is short-circuited by director Griffin Dunne's overwhelming inability to establish a consistent tone for the admittedly off-kilter material.

Variety Emanuel Levy

Part comedy, part family drama, part romance, part special-effects mystery-adventure, and not entirely satisfying on any of these levels, this hodgepodge suffers from the conflicting sensibilities of its three credited scripters: Robin Swicord, who has done good work before, Akiva Goldsman, who has not, and Adam Brooks.

Dallas Observer Bill Gallo

As witch movies go -- even lighthearted, supposedly comic witch movies -- Practical Magic is conspicuously lacking in supernatural phenomena.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

A witch comedy so slapdash, plodding, and muddled it seems to have had a hex put on it.

Washington Post Rita Kempley

Director Griffin Dunne lacks a clear vision, torn between blithe spirits and brimstone, between madcap and macabre. But then what does it matter when there's so little magic on screen anyhow? That is unless you count making audiences disappear.