Practical Magic 2 has landed on Rotten Tomatoes with one of the year’s starkest critic‑versus‑audience divides for a major studio genre release. As of this weekend, the Sandra Bullock–Nicole Kidman sequel sits at a 36% Tomatometer from 116 critic reviews against a verified audience score in the low‑90s from more than 500 ratings, a gap wide enough to feel like critics and fans watched entirely different films. ScreenRant first spotlighted the split, framing it as proof that the franchise’s cult following is still very much alive nearly three decades later.
That rift is baked into the franchise’s history. The original 1998 Practical Magic earned only about a 30% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, yet fans pushed its audience rating to roughly 73%, turning the witchy romantic dramedy into a cable and home‑video staple despite its “rotten” status. Early coverage of the sequel has repeatedly noted how closely Practical Magic 2’s numbers mirror the first film’s profile: middling‑to‑poor reviews on aggregator sites paired with a strongly positive response from the people who’ve been revisiting the Owens sisters’ kitchen table for years.
Critics who’ve soured on Practical Magic 2 describe a sequel that leans too hard on nostalgia while struggling to conjure a compelling new story. Several Rotten Tomatoes blurbs highlighted by ScreenRant dismiss the film as an unnecessary, flimsy follow‑up to a movie some reviewers already viewed as slight, arguing that the sequel exposes how much the original was a product of its late‑’90s moment. Yahoo Entertainment’s roundup of reviews points to a “wonky script” and uneven tone as recurring complaints, noting that the film has hovered in the mid‑30s on the Tomatometer and settled around a mid‑40s score on Metacritic. Forbes similarly characterizes the Rotten Tomatoes tally as “splattering” the Bullock‑Kidman reunion, emphasizing that the sequel marks Bullock’s worst‑reviewed movie in nearly 20 years by the site’s metrics.
Audiences, though, are putting a very different kind of spell on the numbers. Rotten Tomatoes’ Popcornmeter shows Practical Magic 2 with a verified audience score in the low‑90s, based on hundreds of ratings and an average around 4.6 out of 5, while broader user scores still sit solidly in the high‑80s. A dedicated thread tracking the audience score’s rise notes that the rating stayed above 90% as it passed both the 250‑ and 500‑review thresholds, underscoring consistent fan enthusiasm rather than a brief early spike. Rotten Tomatoes’ own editorial highlight of audience reviews brands the film a “heartwarming sequel,” pulling comments that praise its cozy atmosphere, emotional payoffs, and the joy of simply watching Bullock and Kidman share the screen in a witchy domestic setting again. ScreenRant’s summary of viewer reactions echoes that tone, citing fans who “loved the movie,” celebrated its blend of laughs and tears, and treated returning to the Owens family as a comfort watch rather than a prestige event.
Part of why those fans are so forgiving is the almost mythic wait between installments. Coverage from outlets like Yahoo notes that Practical Magic 2 arrives nearly three decades after the original, a reunion that many viewers never expected to see given the first film’s lukewarm box‑office and critical reputation. Over the intervening years, Practical Magic steadily grew into a Halloween‑season favorite and a Tumblr‑era touchstone for cottagecore witch aesthetics, building the kind of devoted following that tends to value vibes and character chemistry over structural tightness. The sequel’s release in early September 2026, following a review‑embargo lift that immediately pushed the critics’ score into the low‑30s, quickly became a stress test of how much that long‑nurtured affection could outweigh fresh critical skepticism. Yahoo’s box‑office reporting suggests that, at least on opening nights, the film has “shrugged off” poor reviews with solid turnout, hinting that audience goodwill may be translating into respectable ticket sales.
The numbers have become enough of a story on their own that they’ve even attracted prediction‑market attention. A live Rotten Tomatoes score market tracked by Polymarket shows traders overwhelmingly betting that Practical Magic 2 will remain above a 30% Tomatometer, with odds still favoring a final score somewhere in the low‑to‑mid‑30s as additional reviews trickle in. Forbes pieces chart a similar trajectory, describing the score’s brief fluctuations before stabilizing in that range and emphasizing that, despite all the punditry, both Practical Magic films are now clustered together in the mid‑30s on the site. That alignment reinforces the sense that relatively harsh critical assessment is simply part of this franchise’s DNA, even as its fandom treats the Owens’ world as a warm, witch‑lit refuge where the alchemy of star power and cozy tone matters far more than what any aggregate percentage says.
For genre fans and data‑obsessed moviegoers, Practical Magic 2’s Rotten Tomatoes spread is a reminder of how limited the site’s binary “fresh/rotten” framing can be when dealing with cult properties and comfort cinema. Critics appear to be weighing structural flaws, script clunkiness, and the question of necessity that trails most late sequels, while audiences are largely grading on emotional connection and the pleasure of revisiting beloved characters in a familiar, slightly updated spellbook. Whether the sequel ultimately earns long‑term cult status like its predecessor or fades into the broader stream of revival projects, the current score war makes one thing clear: in the Owens household, practical magic has always had more power with fans than with critics, and that enchantment still shows up loud and clear in the numbers.
