This Halloween season tends to see a lot of hocus pocus going on in the theaters. Warner Brothers' contribution comes in the form of "Practical Magic", a hodge-podge of comedy, drama, romance, occult, special effects and star power served up by actor-turned-director Griffin Dunne in his second directorial attempt. The result, as is apparent from the film's grab-bag sensibilities, is highly uneven.

The needlessly complicated story, adapted from a novel by Alice Hoffman (where it probably made a lot more sense and had proper time to develop its various trajectories), begins with a tale of how the Owens women descend from an ancestor who practised the black arts. Cursed to send the man they love to an untimely death, the witches somehow manage to maintain their family line all the way to Sally (Sandra Bullock) and Gillian (Nicole Kidman), a pair of isters who are polar opposites in every way. Brought up by their Aunt Frances (Stockard Channing) and Aunt Jet (Dianne Wiest) after their parents untimely demise, Sally learns to dread the witchcraft which is part of the family's heritage, remembering sneers as a child and ostracization as an adult, and chooses to lead a "normal life". Unfortunately, her attempt at a happy existence come crashing down when her loving husband Michael (Mark Feuerstein) meets an untimely demise, leaving her with two daughters. Returning to her aunts mansion, she tries to piece her life together again. Meanwhile, Gillian opts to revel in her wild ways, running around the country with an assortment of men, the latest of which, Jimmy (Goran Visnjic), just may be the death of her. When things between them go terribly wrong, Gillian calls for Sally and the two women work a spell that has a skeptical inspector, Gary Hallet (Aidan Quinn) come knocking on their door just as all hell breaks loose.

The most striking thing about "Practical Magic" is how noisy the film is. There is hardly a moment in the film where there is silence or just mere dialogue - scenes are pre-announced, played out and end amidst a cacophony of "appropriate" radio-friendly tracks or against Alan Silverstri's annoyingly unsubtle score. The net effect of this somewhat bizarre aural overload is that the audience is not so much nudged along the film with the help of the soundtrack, but insistently dragged along for the ride. To say that this is irritating is to put it mildly.

Griffin Dunne's first film, "Addicted to Love", was a dark comedy that had some nice moments in it. In this sophomore effort, Dunne again delivers an unevenly pitched film with some parts that work, and some (unfortunately quite a lot) which don't. One can trace the source of this problem to the wildly fragmented script. It is more than likely that Robin Swicord - who wrote the entertaining and intelligent "Little Women" - can be credited with the script's strongest points of sisterhood, female bonding and occasional flashes of witty comedy, while Akiva Goldsman - who wrote the abysmally bad "Batman and Robin" - can probably be blamed for the script's ill-advised attempts at horror and action. Adam Brooks, who co-wrote "Beloved", was probably called in to salvage and streamline the project; unfortunately, he did not do enough. The entire subplot about Gillian's evil boyfriend is given too much screen time, causing the filmmakers to rely on lazy special effects to distract the audience while nothing much actually happens onscreen. Meanwhile, in these moments, the actors are stranded - they mouth lines unconvincingly, as if wandering in from another movie, and Nicole Kidman is dealt the harshest blow by having to convulse and contort a la Linda Blair in "The Exorcist". At other times, however, when the film deals with the relationship between Sally and Gillian, finding its mirror in the relationship between Sally's daughters and the women's aunts, Dunne does a fine job of eliciting nuanced performances from his cast.

The standout performer in a film like this is often the actor who gets to play the most flamboyant role of all. While Kidman handles Gillian's fiery countenance and devil-may-care attitude with great aplomb, and is suitably moving in her quieter moments, it is Stockard Channing's acerbic wit and slyly bemused performance which delivers the film's best moments. Dianne Wiest is given too little to do, as is the usually reliable Aidan Quinn, here reduced to an uninteresting, perfunctory love interest. Goran Visnjic, last seen in "Welcome to Sarajevo", is turned into a special effect before he has any opportunity to do anything interesting with his one-note character. In fact, the male characters in the film are largely superfluous. However, special mention goes to Mark Feuerstein (TV's "Conrad Bloom"), who manages to make the most of his miniscule role and leave the strongest impression amongst the men. Sandra Bullock continues to salvage her career nicely with a charming performance that mixes equal parts grit and girl-next-door, and she shares a believable chemistry with Kidman that is so crucial to the film's best moments.

"Practical Magic" is likely to do moderately well at the box-office in spite of not being very good. It does enough things right to keep the audience entertained and not offend, and relies heavily on the considerable charms of its two leading ladies. However, given the nature of the material and the occasional flashes of brilliance that come through, Griffin Dunne should have delivered a more satisfying, focussed work.

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