The Craft: Legacy still overshadowed by original

 

(Image courtesy of The Sun Daily)

Charmed is an American supernatural fantasy drama series starring Alyssa Milano, Holly Marie Combs and Shannon Doherty... oh, wait, we're NOT reviewing Charmed? Hmm... for the life of me, I thought I just watched Charmed, the 1998 series about the Halliwell sisters, who happen to be witches and who fight warlocks. Mercy me.   

The Craft: Legacy was an absolute poor attempt to honor the 1996 original movie. Even if they did want to make something completely different, they shouldn't have wasted money on buying the rights and just create something original in the first place. 

There were only two scenes that paid homage to the original movie; the four corners and Fairuza Balk. Other than that, it was completely different and not in a good way. 

The Craft: Legacy starts off with three teenage girls in a summoning circle performing a spell. They recite a version of the "Invocation of the Spirit", but without a fourth corner, it fails. So the movie's premise is set up early in the beginning whereby these three girls are in search of a fourth "sister".

(Image courtesy of Empire)

The Craft: Legacy stars Cailee Spaeny, Gideon Adlon, Lovie Simone, Zoey Luna, Michelle Monaghan and David Duchovny and is directed by Zoe Lister-Jones. In terms of casting, directing and editing, it was a really good attempt. The only time it fell short was the script writing. We understand that it's the new age and female empowerment should be emphasised in everything that comes out of Hollywood as well as the fight for LBGTQ must go on, but this movie really doubled-down hard on these themes. 

Also, if you've watched the original, the magical effects were down-to-earth and more subtle. This movie just went full-on Charmed. If this was a Dungeons & Dragons-esque movie, we wouldn't be surprised if these girls were throwing firebolts and fireballs (there's a huge difference) every which way. 

Overall, it was such huge let down, but let's go into detail about the cons of the movie. 

The representation of magic was too obvious. We're talking about a group of teenage girls invoking mystical powers. This isn't Harry Potter and magic should've been kept a little more subtle. The background of the other three girls should've been explained further instead of just focusing on Lily's character. The last fight between the girls and Adam should've been stretched a lot longer instead of just pulling a cheap exorcism and we also would've liked to see Lily's relationships with her step brothers flesh out a little more. 

The only pros we got from this movie was the revelation that Lily is actually Nancy Downs' daughter from the first movie. 

All in all, we give The Craft: Legacy 👻 ghost emoji out of five. 



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