Kathy Najimy, Bette Midler and Sarah Jessica Parker inHocus Pocus 2(2022).Photo: Matt Kennedy/Courtesy of Disney Enterprises, Inc.
The first reviews forHocus Pocus 2have landed!
The highly anticipated sequel to 1993’sHocus Pocuspremieres Friday on Disney+, and critics seem to be in agreement that the Sanderson sisters —Bette Midler,Kathy NajimyandSarah Jessica Parker— are back to their witchy selves, in the best way.
“What’s most interesting aboutHocus Pocus 2(besides its utility as a lesson in how you can’t bottle and resell nostalgia) is its star trio: Midler, Parker and Najimy reprise their roles with the same energetic kookiness that madeHocus Pocusbeloved. You can tell they’re having fun,” Lovia Gyarkye writes in her review forThe Hollywood Reporter, adding that the three “have an electric presence on screen, their chemistry virtually unchanged in the decades between films.”
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But at the same time, she continues, the sequel feels like it “honors [the] history” of the original movie “without knowing quite how to move beyond it … bear(ing) the markings of a struggle between embracing existing fans and courting new ones.”
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Hocus Pocus 2(2022).Disney Plus
According toIGN’s Amelia Emberwing, “The original cast” — which includes Midler, 76, Najimy, 65, Parker, 57, as well as Doug Jones as zombie Billy Butcherson — “return to remind us whyHocus Pocusbecame a cult classic.”
“The original cast step into their former roles like they’re well broken-in witch boots, and all the new players make admirable additions to theHocus Pocusfranchise,” Emberwing adds.
“There isn’t a lot that can go wrong when you put three fabulous character actresses onscreen together (yes, Sarah Jessica Parker was once a character actress!), but you have to give them a little something to work with,“IndieWire’s Jude Dry writes.
Dry goes on to callHocus Pocus 2"a totally satisfactory sequel” but notes “the plot is basically the same and the jokes mere updates to the original.”
Although that might not necessary be a bad thing. Says Dry, “Why mess with a good thing when you can simply recreate it?”
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Other reviews are a bit more critical, like fromUSA Today’s Brian Truitt, who says, “The witches are done dirty, yet the youth movement also isn’t well served.”
“With its well-trodden fish-out-of-water and teen-movie tropes,Hocus Pocus 2succeeds in showing that not every popular movie needs a starry sequel decades after the fact,” Truitt adds.
“Now it is up to three high school students to stop the ravenous witches from wreaking a new kind of havoc on Salem before dawn on All Hallows' Eve,” the summary adds.
Joining Midler, Parker, Najimy and Jones, 62, the new cast includesWhitney Peak,Belissa Escobedo,Tony Hale,Sam RichardsonandHannah Waddingham.
Hocus Pocus 2is streaming Friday on Disney+.
source: people.com
