Practical Magic 2 just proved critics and audiences are watching two completely different films

Practical Magic 2 has done something rare this week. It has split critics and audiences so hard the maths barely makes sense.

The witchy sequel landed on Rotten Tomatoes with a critic score sitting in the mid to high 30s and an audience score of 93 percent. That is close to a 60 point gap, putting it among the most polarising releases of the year.

Critics are not being subtle about why. Reviewers have called the script "Frankenstein-ed together" and said the film is "all over the place", while still praising Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman for career-best chemistry in service of a plot that barely holds together. RogerEbert.com landed on "more hokey than hocus-pocus", which is about as polite as a pan gets.

Audiences could not care less. PostTrak exit polling came back at 4.5 out of 5, and the film opened to roughly $30 million domestically, enough to knock Spider-Man: Brand New Day off the top of the box office in an otherwise quiet weekend. A B+ CinemaScore suggests the people who actually paid for tickets walked out happy, script holes and all.

This is not new for the franchise. The 1998 original scored even lower with critics and has since become a cult favourite, largely on the strength of Bullock and Kidman playing sisters who feel like actual sisters rather than actors reading lines at each other. Twenty-eight years on, that chemistry is still doing the heavy lifting, and audiences are happy to let the plot logic slide for it.

The gap says less about Practical Magic 2 specifically and more about what each side is grading. Critics mark down clunky structure and thin motivation. Audiences turn up for two Oscar winners playing witches who bicker like real siblings, and on that measure, the film delivers exactly what it promised.

If you loved the first one, skip the reviews and just go. Your popcorn will not check your Rotten Tomatoes score on the way in.