Being a huge fan of the original movie, I was worried this would be a disaster, but it was everything I had hoped it would be. The tone, visuals, and acting are all there. Hocus Pocus 2 is able to hold enough from the first movie to be recognizable, while adding enough new ideas to not just be a boring copy.
Our new, young protagonists are delightful, and give the movie a theme of friendship, rather than family, that was the driving force in the 1993 movie.
The Sanderson sisters are still amazing, and we even get to see them as kids - I don't know who found the young girls to play them, but they did a great job; seriously, I could have watched a movie just about them.
There are loads of laughs here, a little bit of music, and at almost two hours, the movie just flies by. I will absolutely watch this every October - along with the first Hocus Pocus. Fans of the original are going to love this, and anyone new to our trio of witches can jump in and still enjoy.
A few things I disliked about Arrow season 4:
- Darhk as a villain
- Malcolm being around but doing nothing
- Laurel not doing anything until she dies (I loved Laurel's development as a character and we got none of it this season)
- Felicity's 5 minute disability (there was a solid chance to have disabled representation here but it was just used as a dramatic plot device)
- Soap opera Olicity (I used to root for Oliver and Felicity, but I never wanted it to take over the show like it did this season)
- Felicity's mum being around all the time and making the show too comedic
- The Bee Lady episode (I like puns but it was too much and incredibly childish - it didn't feel like the script was written for this show or these characters and it felt so out of place)
- Oliver having a son
- Oliver hiding having a son
- Oliver's son increasing soap opera Olicity
- Literally everything taking a backseat for Olicity's relationship (there was so much to do with their romance this season and the will-they-wont-they did nothing for me)
- Island storyline being unmemorable
- Magic everywhere (come on, that was never what this show was about and it totally changes the tone and makes it look way more trivial)
Of all these things I think the magic was what didn't make season 4 work for me. It made the show lose some of it's original grit and altered the tone the first 3 seasons set up.
But I'm told season 5 takes the show back to it's old roots, so I have hope that Arrow was just a victim of the season 4 curse.
