Hocus Pocus

Disney's Hocus Pocus, if frequently saccharine, at least has the power to engage the viewer. Read full review

Just about every line of dialogue written for a child or teenager is painful (the movie must have been dated a week after release), though I suppose that helps Hocus Pocus work as a time capsule. Far more charm can be found in the largely practical effects and sets. Read full review

Hocus Pocus is an occasionally dull, mostly pedantic motion picture with little to recommend it. It belongs on the long list of summer movies that will quickly be buried and forgotten until the surface on video in six months. For real fun at the expense of the dead, see instead Sam Raimi's Army of Darkness. Read full review

The ugly trio - Midler, Najimy and Parker - perform a show-stopping version of 'I Put a Spell on You' at a Halloween party, but otherwise it's slim pickings. Read full review

With Bette Midler and her onscreen sisters shamelessly hamming things up, it looks as if those involved in making this inoffensive flight of fantasy had more fun than anyone over 12 will have watching it. Still, the blend of witchcraft and comedy should divert kids without driving the patience of their parents to the boiling point, leaving a chance to conjure up a little box office magic among that contingent before the pot tips over. Read full review

So even at 96 minutes (and padded out with pointless, uncredited cameos by Garry and Penny Marshall) “Hocus” feels thin and undernourished from an adult point of view. Read full review

As Shakespeare would have certainly written if he'd been on the movie beat, Double, double toil and trouble, movie stink and critic bubble/'Hocus Pocus' has no focus/has no rhyme, has no reason/ and is... out of season.

Given Midler's comic skills, which haven't been displayed much in her recent films, Hocus Pocus could've been a nice fat slice of goofy fun. But in the hands of director Kenny Ortega, the choreographer/music-video director who created the movie-musical disaster ''Newsies,'' Hocus Pocus is just loud and chaotic -- a good-natured mess that sputters and flares and grounds out before our eyes. [16 July 1993, p.C1]

Disney's half-baked recipe for box-office success. Hocus Pocus is a pretty lackluster affair, owing to excess characters and a choppy, wandering script. [16 July 1993, p.G7]

A good comedy contains at least one of two vital ingredients: sharp, swift writing or terrific comic shtick by the actors. Unfortunately, Hocus Pocus -- like most Hollywood comedies these days -- has neither. That doesn't mean it's a terrible movie. It's not, though it loses focus and momentum two-thirds of the way through and limps home with unsurprising special effects. It's just not all that funny. [16 July 1993, p.17]

It’s acceptable scary-silly kid fodder that adults will find only mildly insulting. Unless they’re Bette Midler fans. In which case it’s depressing as hell. Read full review

Trying to break expectations isn't always a wise idea and here Disney show how not to do it. With this supposed-family movie, they disappoint on nearly every level. The plot is weak, the action poor and it's got Bette Midler, simply dreadful. Read full review

Under direction that can only be described as scatterbrained by choreographer-turned-director Kenny Ortega (NEWSIES), HOCUS POCUS runs off in so many directions at once that it keeps tripping over itself behind a plot that doesn't make the slightest bit of sense. Read full review

And for all its artful, high-flying sorcery, Hocus Pocus cannot escape the irons of an all too pedestrian plotline. Read full review