Sleepover Slump: `Magic' Fails to Charm

PRACTICAL MAGIC

Directed by Griffin Dunne

Starring Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman

Warner Bros. Pictures

Girls, break out your jammies, curlers and slam books--it's slumber party time! You'll be inviting a break-up if you drag your boyfriend to this flick, and you would be wasting your money to see it in the theater. Practical Magic is one to see with the chicks, if you can bear it, (no guys, Kidman and Bullock don't bare it, this one is rated PG-13). Dreamier than The Craft, Practical Magic is also more childlike, lacking the rebelliousness which previous witch movies have cultivated.

Sisters Sally (Sandra Bullock) and Gillian (Nicole Kidman) Owens are born into a family of witches who practice white magic. Good witch Sally tries to fit into a small New England town, while Gillian looks for love in all the wrong places while trying out her magical powers. The familial curse is that a man who loves one of the Owens' witches will meet an untimely death, as Gillian's abusive boyfriend Jimmy (Goran Visnjic) does at the hands of Bullock, accidentally on purpose.

Surprise surprise, the movie isn't over at that point--Visnjic comes back to haunt the sisters, bringing police officer Gary Hallet (Aidan Quinn) to the scene. At this point the real story begins as Bullock begins to discover that love ain't all that dangerous (spoken with sexy southern drawl, compliments of Quinn) and Kidman, having battled Visjnic on earth, takes him on in the spirit world.

Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman are a powerful duo as sisters, if not slightly unbelievable (do they look anything alike?). Kidman returns with a look reminiscent of her Australian debut in that movie classic, Flirting. Her red hair is pressed flat and she pastes a naughty girl look on her face. Bullock, as usual is irresistible, her nice-girl image hasn't changed since Speed. Unfortunately, it is their good looks that are sure to draw the crowds, not their acting, mainly because of the stale lines and cliched characters they're stuck with.

The plotline itself (witchy sisters defeat nasty ex-boyfriend in this world and the next, and manage to find love at the same time) is weak to say the best, utterly predictable at its worst. Director Griffin Dunne, who also directed Addicted to Love, has some nice moments in terms of pure cinematography. The setting of the coast of New England is gorgeous, but typical. When it comes down to it, he fails to exploit the talent he has at his disposal.

This movie was not even given the benefit of bitchiness that The Craft had going for it. Where Neve Campbell and company reveled in their magic, Bullock tries to repress it, downplaying her powers in order to fit in. Kidman does her best to portray the bad girl who uses her magic for fun, but such a sickly sweet Bullock offsets her. Kidman walks into Bullock's attempts to create a normal life in smalltown New England, saying things like, "Hang on to your husbands, ladies." But we end up feeling sorry for Kidman instead of rejoicing in her power. It is goody-two-shoes Bullock who does most of the magic.

Eventually it is the manly cowboy riding into town who, in one incredibly contrived scene, manages to send the evil spirit of Kidman's ex into the underworld. Aidan Quinn, who plays the good-looking detective called in to solve the case of the disappearance of Kidman's ex-boyfriend, is the quintessential John Wayne cowboy that Hollywood has never fallen out of love with. Unfortunately, he's not nearly as good-looking as the camera would have us believe. Cursed with a bad haircut and looking overweight, Quinn will never be a real heart-throb alongside the likes of DiCaprio or, for the older set, Cary Grant. Still, the filmmakers do their best to convince us he is still worthy of the love of sexy Bullock. His performance was not all that bad, but given such cheesy gimmicks as the use of his sheriff's star as a magic talisman, he has little to do but work on his Wayne impression.

All the actors in this movie, from the ever-sarcastic Stockard Channing '65 and Dianne Wiest who play Kidman and Bullock's witchy aunts, to main characters Kidman, Bullock and Quinn, are doomed to failure by tired lines such as, "There's a little witch in all of us."

What is really annoying about movies like this is their insistence that all women really need to get rid of abusive boyfriends is a little witchcraft. Not only that, but Hollywood continues to try and convince us that the best way for women to bond outside of PTA phone trees and sewing bees is by holding a good old-fashioned coven. In what remains the most embarrassingly overplayed line in the whole movie, one of the town housewives turned coven-member brandishes her broom and says, "Come on ladies, it's time to clean house!"

While Practical Magic initially left me with a smile, it quickly turned to that stomachache you get after eating too much candy. The sight of Bullock and Kidman in a semi-lesbian erotic scene may arouse some, but eventually, it is just one more cheap trick to keep us in our seats. To give the flick a little credit, it never promises to be Citizen Kane, and it provides some good laughs and a feelgood finale. If you want a brain-candy slumber party movie, rent Practical Magic, by all means. Just don't expect it to work any magic on you.