A trip to Halloweentown for a missing spellbook leaves Marnie and Aggie at the mercy of a vengeful warlock who has a bone to pick with the Cromwells.
Two years after defeating Kalabar, Marnie (Kimberly J. Brown) recaps the first film and explains Aggie (Debbie Reynolds) now lives with them, only to sigh about her and Gwen (Judith Hoag) fighting again.
While she chats with someone online, a face appears and watches from behind her, but disappears when she looks and when Sophie (Emily Roeske) calls her down. Snapping on a witch outfit, Marnie joins the party below, where Aggie is amazing kids by pulling treats out of her bottomless bag. Marnie reminds her to not get too extravagant and keeps things civil when Gwen arrives; Aggie believes Marnie is her perfect replacement as head of the family line. Gwen and Aggie argue and split after the former sends the kids to mortal games, and Sophie follows her grandma, now looking at Halloweentown through a crystal ball. She watches elf Astrid (Xandra Radley) fail to secure a donation from Gort (Blu Mankuma), the town's miserly junkman. Everything lost in the mortal world is transported to Gort's messy cottage. Knowing Aggie misses her friends, Sophie suggests she visit Halloweentown while the portal is open, but her grandma says such a visit would be more frustrating. Instead, she plans to wait until next year when Marnie will join her, pointing out the commitment it takes to train as the next family head, since like Sophie recalls, a year in the mortal world lasts for hundreds in Halloweentown. They spot Luke (Phillip Van Dyke), whom Aggie says has become a fine young goblin, and the two leave when Sophie feels someone she doesn't know is coming. Meanwhile, Marnie and Gwen discuss the dedication needed to head the Cromwell line, and how Gwen learned you can't use magic to get everything you want. Gwen says Marnie will be a stranger in the mortal world after a year, and the two are interrupted when new neighbor Kal (Daniel Kountz) and his father Alex (Peter Wingfield) arrive to say hello. Marnie is instantly interested in the young man, and agrees to give him a tour while his dad also expresses interest in Gwen. Marnie plays along that everything "witchy" about her is for fun, and Kal gets her attention by pointing out her room doesn't match her, being rather plain. Admitting her frustration with Gwen's rules, she decides to take him into Aggie's room, which the grandma had previously hidden, as per Gwen's rules. Inside the enchanted area, she continues the ruse that it's all a show, but cuts things short when he notices Aggie's spellbook, the Biblio Magica. Marnie steps out before Kal, and as such fails to notice him shrink the book with a wave of his hand and slip it in his pocket. To Marnie's disappointment, Kal decides to head out, but he smoothly asks her to the costume party at the school, and she accepts. Aggie and Sophie enter as he leaves, confused as they don't see who Sophie sensed, and Kal, outside, casts a spell to open the portal to Halloweentown. To the family's surprise, Aggie's bag suddenly reaches its limits, and Aggie says she'll have to check her house in Halloweentown, to which the bag is connected. Marnie doesn't think Gwen will let any of them go willingly, but Aggie says she'll persuade her and say she needs Marnie's help; Sophie hopes to tag along. Aggie tells Gwen the plan, and the mother is of course wary, allowing Marnie to go but telling Sophie to get ready for bed, which causes the girl to stomp upstairs. Aggie gleefully heads out with Manie, leaving Dylan (Joey Zimmerman) with one of her two "headphones," essentially magic walkie talkies shaped like heads. Outside, Aggie and Marnie discover the bus stop is missing, and open the portal, which for some reason takes multiple tries. The two eventually make it to Halloweentown, but they're about to realize they've fallen right into a trap that leaves them separated from their at-risk family.
What a sequel to an already beloved movie, hitting all the best marks for a sequel that the following films failed to nail.
The beginning odd in that narration isn't a typical aspect of the movies, but is a way to catch up young viewers, since the movie came out three years after the original. It's also a quick way of setting up what has happened since then, with Aggie deciding to join the Pipers at their house, which has led to her and Gwen butting heads. I like that this is still an aspect of their relationship, because despite reconnecting in the first movie, they still have issues with one another. Saving Halloweentown from Kalabar was a way for the two to come together despite their differences, but when things calm down, those differences will resurface. Everyone feels like a real family, with Reynolds and Brown seeming to care about and enjoy each other's company, and Reynolds and Hoag having a tension when just near each other, and obvious annoyance when they argue. Overall, the whole group of actors has a great amount of chemistry, and Brown and Kountz exemplify this with how quickly Marnie and Kal get along initially. Marnie is quickly smitten with the charming young man she meets, and though she does a poor job at hiding her magic, she excellently shows her interest in him. Interestingly, Kimgerly J. Brown and Daniel Kountz are actually a couple in real life, and once made a video where Marnie and Kal reunite later in life. One area where the acting is less impressive is with Sophie, whom the movies sort of left behind over time as Marnie became more and more the focus. I do think this is understandable; Emily Roeske might not have been as into acting even then, as she now runs a martial arts dojo. The particular moment that comes to mind is when she is talking to Aggie, and mechanically points out the time difference between the mortal and creature worlds. The way she delivers the line is very rough, and doesn't sound natural at all, but this is partially because it's pretty clunky exposition. It is an important aspect to the story, of course, as Marnie and Aggie get stuck in Halloweentown and have mere hours to return to the mortal one. It's also funny looking back now at the foreshadowing of what's up with Alex, as it's rather obvious, though some of it was bound to be in a Disney Channel movie. This is the case for a few aspects of the movie, such as the rose, which is a less-obvious moment unless you've just recently watched the first movie. After this point will come the spoiler aspects of what I'm talking about, so if you don't want to see spoilers, go ahead and stop.
One of my favorite moments of foreshadowing in the movie is the rose, as it's really a perfect clue from Kal about what's to come that Marnie simply doesn't realize.
Upon entering Halloweentown, Marnie and Aggie discover everything and everyone gray and boring, with creatures seemingly turning into human caricatures. When they try to open the portal again, they realize something is blocking their powers, and suddenly Kal's face appears on the block replacing the town's pumpkin. He reveals what he's been doing and that he could've taken Aggie's book at any point, but wanted Marnie to feel something for him, and Marnie recognizes his rose gesture as the move Kalabar did to impress her mom in the first movie. It is this that makes Marnie realize Kalabar is Kal's father, and he explains he wants revenge on them for destroying his father after wrecking his plans. Another bit of exposition that is also clunky but I also enjoy, is Aggie and Sophie looking at Astrid and Gort and talking about the latter's personality. Astrid is the first to appear again later, and this is simply to show Aggie and Marnie for sure what's happening in Halloweentown. Later on we get to see the wonderful Gort, who is a joy to watch, as Aggie realizes he likely has her second spellbook. In one of many moments I find funny due to a character's reaction, Aggie and Marnie get done searching the former's house for the book, and she says "if it's lost, I know just where it is," which of course confuses Marnie. This statement actually makes sense given the context around Gort, as we learned before that anything lost in either world ends up in his house. What we don't learn yet, however, is something they also likely don't know: anything lost elsewhere is lost, but it's different when they're lost at Gort's. After finding a way to defeat Kal's spell, Marnie asks Luke where the time travel spell Aggie provided is, as she put it down before digging through the trash. Gort chimes in that she shouldn't have done so, as it's lost now, while lost things show up at his house, things lost at his house "go poof." As Gort is such a vile creature, he and people likely weren't close enough to ever learn this, and it's essential as this leaves Marnie and Luke trapped once again. There is another reaction moment that still makes me laugh a bit earlier, when Aggie shows the kids her "headphones" and demonstrates how they work. After whispering a message into one, the other speaks, and Dylan, who is already disgusted, is appalled and lets out a horrified reaction.
Gort and the events at his house are some of my favorite parts of the movie, as the disgusting, angry creature contrasts the Cromwells and Luke so well.
When he's gray he's funny enough, because everyone as a "gray" human is essentially a dramatic opposite of themselves, so Gort is basically OCD about cleanliness. As opposed to his actual attitude, he needs everything organized, and at one point after the gray spell hits Aggie, they care more about matching socks than the trap. Luke and Marnie have some great reactions to Gort, especially the former, who reacts sarcastically or often fearfully to the normal Gort's actions. This might be because he experienced the gray spell as well, and saw how different it made everyone; at one point he says they should see the incredibly slow Benny when he's not in a hurry. Luke is fun to watch in his grayed out form as well, essentially as a bored teen who doesn't care about anything. He repeatedly responds to Aggie and Marnie with just a "whatever," says he went gray because "everyone's doing it," and when Marnie gets frustrated as he stands by instead of helping search for the book, he simply wonders if there's food anywhere. Marnie has an excellent reaction to Gort as well, after she and Luke, having lost Aggie after the gray spell hit her, traveled back in time as an escape. After a few mishaps, they land in Gort's house again, and he agrees to help only after discovering what Kalabar's son will do to him in the future. While digging through trash, Marnie discovers an enormous cockroach and screams, but it turns out to be Gort's pet Spike, and she watches puzzled as he gets lovey.
Set designs and costuming are also great in this movie, as I like Marnie's attitude dealing with everything and solving their problems.
The first movie most certainly has some great creature makeups, but this time around I also really like the main characters' outfits, especially Marnie's. Along with finally being able to celebrate Halloween, Marnie is now embracing her witch lifestyle, and as such puts on a gorgeous blue robe with classic astral designs. The outfit does more than just show Marnie's attitude, as well, as it is a lovely match for the red robe we once again see Aggie in. Even the rest of her family spends the movie in perfect outfits to showcase their personalities, with Dylan in a preppy sweater, Sophie in a costume much like her sister, and Gwen in the most "normal" clothes you can think of. Speaking of Gwen, dang does she have some terrible points and decisions in this movie, mostly thanks to her weird dislike for magic. Early on, a big issue is what we had in the first movie: she doesn't want the kids too exposed to magic and is pretty vitriolic about it. She has a good reason for doing so, claiming her husband taught her you can't get everything you want just by using magic to wish it so. However, she has been hatefully refusing the kids some of their heritage, and just because she wants to be normal doesn't make it okay to try to force her kids to be. Marnie loves being a witch, and in the previous movie Gwen was willing to let this one dream go away before Marnie knew it was possible. This time around, her stubborn refusal to deal with magic makes her stubbornly claim the problem Marnie and Aggie are facing is most likely something completely normal. The two have no reason to lie to her, yet she refuses to at least question if Kal and Alex could be antagonists like they've said. Possibly her dumbest move comes at the dance, as Kal prepares to cast the creature spell on everyone, and she decides to put on her mask to hide from him. They don't know what spell he's casting, of course, but she thinks he won't know her by her mask like he does her face...even though Alex said he and Kal picked it out. Marnie, on the other hand, spends the movie learning and trying hard to make up for her mistakes, and really goes far in learning how to solve problems. First comes when she's in Gort's house, and she realizes there's another way they can go than just trying to get outside or in; they can go through time, which is neither. she compares this to back doors in computer programs, and it's the perfect way to get through a strong spell they couldn't find a way to break. She uses similar logic later on when all hope seems lost and everyone thinks they have to just give up and let a year of mortal time pass. She is heartbroken and blames herself for what happened to her mom, who is some sort of grotesque green creature with no memory of her former self. Realizing Halloweentown and the portal to it had to be created with magic, Marnie eventually determines they must be able to create their own portal. This is really an important aspect of magic that they others seemed to have forgotten: as Aggie said, it works by wishing for something and letting yourself have it. This movie introduces a lot of rules to everything, like the Code of Merlin, but just like the time solution, Marnie realizes there's a loophole in everything.
After all these years and some disappointing sequels, this is still one Disney sequel I still love, and can find new things to enjoy still.
One such thing is when I watched a few years ago, and the German I learned in college allowed me to recognize and decipher Gwen's spell to turn Alex back into a bunch of frogs. This time around, I was listening to Kal perform his spell to open the portal, and I wondered if this was also German or maybe another language. According to an MTV interview, Daniel Kountz improvised using part of a German song he learned in his high school choir. Kountz had assumed he'd be given a spell, but the writers meant it when the script simply said "Kal says spell and walks through the portal." Minutes before he was set to perform the scene, director Mary Lambert asked if he had his spell, and he said he did, and after panicking, chose to use the song. The cast and story for this were fantastic, with plenty of great costumes and sets, and people who clearly cares about the story they were taking part in. Some great new characters were added, even if they didn't show up again after this, like Gort, and Marnie learns and proves a great lesson by the end. If you love Halloweentown, you've likely already watched this movie this year, but you should definitely give it a view regardless of if you've seen it before or not.
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AuthorI love the entertainment side of things. Video games, tv shows, superheroes and movies are my passion and I'd love to get the news out for things I enjoy. My contact page has links to my social media, so if you enjoy what I have to say, likes, shares, comments, and follows are always greatly appreciated! Archives
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