‘Hocus Pocus 2’ review: When ‘twice as good as the original’ means less than you think

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What’s halfway between trick and treat? That’s HocusPocus2 , writes critic phillipstribune, who calls it 'twice as good as the first one,' which he 'didn’t like at all.'

“Hocus Pocus 2.” It manages to tell its story straight, so that’s a huge improvement over the first one. There are some laughs, and director Anne Fletcher — like Kenny Ortega, who did the first one, she’s dance-trained and a veteran choreographer — manages a far smoother amalgam of effects, mood swings, mugging, headless-zombie comic relief and heartstring-yanking that miraculously almost kind of partly works. All in all, it’s twice as good as “Hocus Pocus.

Prologue: in Old Salem, in classic Witching Times, the Sanderson girls are teenagers, and “Hocus Pocus 2″ is their origin story. Hannah Waddingham of “ Honestly, that’s enough plot, though screenwriter Jen D’Angelo has lots more. The jokes and scares operate in better proportion this time. The witch-out-of-water setup places Midler, Parker and Najimy in strange new surroundings, including the local modern-day apothecary. ”It glows from within! With a sickening light!” Midler cries, astonished by the sight of a nocturnal Walgreens.

 

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phillipstribune Watching it now. It’s not nearly as good as the first.

When HocusPocus was released in 1993, movie critic Johanna Steinmetz gave it one star. “Hocus Pocus” is harmless, but it’s about as much fun as celebrating Mardi Gras under the influence of candy corn, Steinmetz wrote. Read the full review:

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