IGN serves a global audience, so with The Craft: Legacy coming to VOD in the U.S. and in theaters internationally this week, we are publishing our review from Kristy Puchko who watched the movie via a digital screener. Read more on IGN’s policy on movie reviews in light of COVID-19 here. IGN strongly encourages anyone considering going to a movie theater during the COVID-19 pandemic to check their local public health and safety guidelines before buying a ticket.
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24 years ago, The Craft gave teen girls a coven to call their own. Through witchcraft, four female friends sought self-confidence, love, power, and vengeance. But magical makeovers swiftly led to betrayal, murder, and madness. The Craft: Legacy is not a remake retreading the beloved ’90s sleeper hit for a new audience. Instead, this sequel strides from the footsteps of its predecessor to strike a path of its own, for better and for worse.
Written and directed by Zoe Lister-Jones, The Craft: Legacy’s first act is very familiar. It begins with three would-be witches lamenting their need for a fourth member so that they might harness the magic of the elements. Cut to: the soon-to-be fourth, a timid new girl rolling into town. She will face torment from cruel boys before finding her tribe among these spell-casting outcasts. Such plot points might lull fans of the original into thinking they know what’s next. However, Lister-Jones lays in some early distinctions to suggest this sequel is not taking the witch-gone-wild route.
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For one, the teen witches, Frankie (Gideon Adlon), Tabby (Lovie Simone), and Lourdes (Zoey Luna), don’t embrace new girl Lily (Cailee Spaeny) because they’ve witnessed her aptitude for magic. They approach her out of kindness, not coveting. Once she’s humiliated in class by a body-shaming jock Timmy (Nicholas Galitzine), they offer a helping hand, a kind word, and some fresh gym shorts. It’s after this they realize that she’s destined to be their fourth. These aren’t the shoplifting, selfish bad girls of the original. This small but pivotal difference in motivation signals these girls care more about each other than they do the craft. Coming from this place of compassion, they create a hex to transform the bully into a “less of a garbage person.”
Rather than a dull-eyed lapdog (Skeet Ulrich in the original), the dream boy here is “woke,” calling out in-class bullying, condemning heteronormativity, and jamming to Princess Nokia, after declaring, “More than anything, tonight I really just want to dance!” It’s a surprising transformation that makes Timmy more than a mark; it makes him one of the gang. The second act digs into who he is beyond that agro-bro front, resulting in a poignant revelation, which is met with support, not scorn. However, this tender scene pivots to a plot twist that ultimately takes away from the rest of the coven.
The original Craft’s story centered on the perspective of straight cis-girls, most of whom were white. The Craft: Legacy proves more inclusive, involving main characters who are people of color and LGBTQA+. On top of that, it explores the hurt and humanity in its bullying boy. However, Lister-Jones spends more time developing Lily and Timmy than she does the rest of the coven. There’s a jubilant montage of the girls blossoming friendship, which includes magical make-up application, movie nights, and spell-casting to battle back non-violently against jerks. Yet the individual girls get little definition. Adlon is the spunky one, who has the heart of a hippie and tends to let her mouth run away with her before her brain can catch up. Simone is the rational one, who takes stock with clear eyes. Luna is the glamorous one, who carries with her a cool confidence. They are charismatic. Yet their backstories, trials, and desires are unexplored. After the midpoint, the story veers away from all of these characters to focus on Lily…and a bunch of stuff to set up another sequel.
Mining the culture war for an antagonist bigger and badder than traumatized Nancy Downs (Fairuza Balk), Lister-Jones brews up a not-so-secret society that would do these young witches harm. It’s an intriguing way to make this story higher stakes and politically urgent. However, the execution here is frustratingly slipshod. The Craft: Legacy throws in a quartet of characters who are thinly sketched, yet have a dominating role on Lily’s journey. Thus, Spaeny’s part switches from discovery to defensive, which gives her little play beyond fear. In the requisite villain monologue, more questions are raised than answered. Thankfully, this bumbling barrels into an exhilarating face-off that weaves together the girls’ powers, not only of magic but also in their unity. Regretfully, the final moment of this ferocious finale feels bizarrely truncated, as if the PG-13 rating pushed producers to cut a gruesome send-off for the sinister foe.
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Source: IGN.com The Craft: Legacy Review