The original "Practical Magic" was released in October 1998, almost 30 years ago, setting the stage for a long-awaited sequel to a potential movie franchise that was ruined by rushing another bad screenplay, which will most likely ruin the chance for this movie to spawn more sequels. Considering the time and money it costs to create a great screenplay, missing this vital step so many times with movies like this one means the potential loss of a great deal of money.
The story is mundane and boring, about the daughters of the two main characters, Sally Owens (Sandra Bullock) and Gillian Owens (Nicole Kidman) — Kylie ( Joey King) and Maria (Ema Cavolli) — and a hundreds-of-years-old curse dooming any man who becomes romantically involved with them to an early death.
This leads Kylie to travel to England to try to find the source of the curse and end it for good. Sally and Gillian follow and meet up with an old friend, Ian Write (Lee Pace), and a long stretch of this story where very little happens, with a special effects climax that was just average and a predictable ending.
The Rotten Tomatoes score is a very low and correct 39%, with my rating at 10%, a big miss and another lost movie franchise opportunity.
Movie Reviews From a Screenwriter's Perspective
Sunday, September 13, 2026
Friday, September 11, 2026
Movie Review: Runner
The new movie "Runner" is another example of how Alan Ritchson is the new #1 action movie star. Starting with the Amazon Prime series "Reacher", Ritchson has now made 5 action movies in the last three years.
The logline for Runner: A former soldier turned elite courier must transport a life-saving liver to a critically ill young girl within hours, but when a ruthless cartel targets the organ, he and his unlikely partner are forced into a deadly race across Australia to stay alive—and complete the delivery.
This idea is a good one, along with adding Owen Wilson (Ben Bishop) and Ritchson (Hank Malone), who rides with Malone to avoid a group of drug cartel criminals who want the extremely rare liver (due to a rare blood type) to a hospital in Brisbane, Australia, to save the life of a child. The action scenes are well done, but nothing we haven't all seen before. Throughout this film, Wilson and Ritchson have very good chemistry during all the many action scenes, which include car crashes, chase scenes, and the many physical fights that Hank Malone has, dominating the many criminals trying to kill him and Bishop and steal the liver that is stored in a special case to keep it at a constant cold temperature.
The side story is Hank Malone's own child, who died of leukemia some years earlier, causing him to become an alcoholic, leading to his divorce and his job as a runner, transporting items around Australia. Malone did make progress, earning his AA 1-year sobriety coin, but unfortunately his ex-wife moved on and married another man.
There are some impressive special effects and action scenes at the end of this movie, and a few surprises that I did not see coming, but not enough to turn this from an average action movie into a great one.
I agree with the moderate 69% Rotten Tomatoes rating and give this movie a marginal recommendation mostly for the action scenes.
The logline for Runner: A former soldier turned elite courier must transport a life-saving liver to a critically ill young girl within hours, but when a ruthless cartel targets the organ, he and his unlikely partner are forced into a deadly race across Australia to stay alive—and complete the delivery.
This idea is a good one, along with adding Owen Wilson (Ben Bishop) and Ritchson (Hank Malone), who rides with Malone to avoid a group of drug cartel criminals who want the extremely rare liver (due to a rare blood type) to a hospital in Brisbane, Australia, to save the life of a child. The action scenes are well done, but nothing we haven't all seen before. Throughout this film, Wilson and Ritchson have very good chemistry during all the many action scenes, which include car crashes, chase scenes, and the many physical fights that Hank Malone has, dominating the many criminals trying to kill him and Bishop and steal the liver that is stored in a special case to keep it at a constant cold temperature.
The side story is Hank Malone's own child, who died of leukemia some years earlier, causing him to become an alcoholic, leading to his divorce and his job as a runner, transporting items around Australia. Malone did make progress, earning his AA 1-year sobriety coin, but unfortunately his ex-wife moved on and married another man.
There are some impressive special effects and action scenes at the end of this movie, and a few surprises that I did not see coming, but not enough to turn this from an average action movie into a great one.
I agree with the moderate 69% Rotten Tomatoes rating and give this movie a marginal recommendation mostly for the action scenes.
Friday, September 4, 2026
Movie Review: By Any Means
The new movie "By Any Means" is loosely based on the murder in 1966 of Vernon Dahmer by the KKK, who was a prominent civil-rights advocate and Mississippi NAACP leader. The FBI hires Greg Scarpa (Mark Wahlberg) to obtain information about this murder, "by any means", using Scarpa's Mafia experience to torture witnesses to get the information they needed. This is the essential problem with this movie: way too many scenes of people being tied to chairs and beaten in the face and the legs with fists and baseball bats.
Why would the producers not know that this many scenes of human torture would never be considered any level of entertainment? Wahlberg, once again, is perfect in his role as an extremely disgusting and unlikeable lowlife who has no decency or morals. Scarpas too many scenes of extreme violence and torture trying to obtain information became old after the first scene with him beating the legs of a man with a baseball bat way too many times. By the end of this movie, the scenes of human torture became unbearable to watch. Had the interrogation scenes been reduced by half, this movie would have had a chance to be considered an above-average movie.
The FBI hired agent Wayne Strider (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) to ride with Greg Scarpa into Mississippi, creating an extremely volatile relationship throughout this story, leading to a fist fight between the two of them based on disagreements over the violent methods Scarpa uses to obtain information. Both actors are good in their roles, but unfortunately, this kind of story we have seen way too many times before. There is nothing new here, with a story that is, at best, only average, with the only revelation about the FBI using a Mafia hitman to illegally obtain information.
The low Rotten Tomatoes rating of only 51% is correct this time around, and I do not recommend this movie.
Why would the producers not know that this many scenes of human torture would never be considered any level of entertainment? Wahlberg, once again, is perfect in his role as an extremely disgusting and unlikeable lowlife who has no decency or morals. Scarpas too many scenes of extreme violence and torture trying to obtain information became old after the first scene with him beating the legs of a man with a baseball bat way too many times. By the end of this movie, the scenes of human torture became unbearable to watch. Had the interrogation scenes been reduced by half, this movie would have had a chance to be considered an above-average movie.
The FBI hired agent Wayne Strider (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) to ride with Greg Scarpa into Mississippi, creating an extremely volatile relationship throughout this story, leading to a fist fight between the two of them based on disagreements over the violent methods Scarpa uses to obtain information. Both actors are good in their roles, but unfortunately, this kind of story we have seen way too many times before. There is nothing new here, with a story that is, at best, only average, with the only revelation about the FBI using a Mafia hitman to illegally obtain information.
The low Rotten Tomatoes rating of only 51% is correct this time around, and I do not recommend this movie.
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