CinemaSerf

Getting on for three decades after their first outing, the "Owen" women are still struggling too keep the loves of their lives alive. Now, though, the effects of the family curse have spread to the next generation and to "Kylie" (Joey King) who has fallen love with school sweetheart "Gideon" (Xolo Maridueña). Her mother (Sandra Bullock) had long since sworn her sister (Nicole Kidman) to secrecy about their broom-wielding provenence, so "Kylie" and sister "Antonia" (Maisie Williams) know nothing of the potential threat - until, that is, poor old "Gideon" comes a cropper. Now with him in intensive care, and armed with a mysterious book left by grandma "Jet" (Dianne Weist), "Kylie" heads to a quaintly depicted and almost Edwardian Britain where the "Hogwarts Express" appears to still be still in service, where she hopes to find a way to smash this evil once and for all and so save her beau from being buried under a pile of liberally sprinkled salt. I don't know if maybe it's just the time having passed, but there really isn't any sparkle to this. Bullock and Kidman have their moments, but the mischievously maternal efforts of Weist and the sparingly used Stockard Channing are largely missing and there is a distinct lack of joy throughout this. It's more of a family soap - Iike a feature-length episode of "Buffy" and though the assembled actors do just about enough, I left the cinema thinking this was nothing I'd ever remember and that it was almost entirely devoid of magic.