Return to Halloweentown (2006)

Return to Halloweentown arrives as the fourth installment of a franchise that has, by this point, settled into the comfortable rhythm of a Disney Channel original movie: a young witch, a college campus, a box that should not be opened, and a trio of sneering antagonists named after colors. The film concerns Marnie Piper, now eighteen and enrolled at Witch University, where magic has been banned to level the academic playing field. This is a premise with some satirical promise. The film does not pursue it. Instead we get time travel, a family secret about a grandmother's middle name, and a magical amulet that compels its wearer to control others. The moral instruction is gentle and generic: use power responsibly, break rules only for good causes. Nobody is lectured about the state of the world, and the film seems content to remain a Halloween confection.

The cast is notably multiethnic by the standards of 2006 cable television, with Kristy Wu, Keone Young and Summer Bishil in supporting roles. The film does not comment on this. It simply is. Women lead the narrative: a chancellor, a professor, a trio of villainous sisters, and a protagonist who saves the day. No explicit argument is made about gender, and none appears intended. The villain runs a corporation called Sinister Inc., which sounds like a critique of something until we notice the film has no interest in critiquing anything. Corporate power is here a costume, not a subject.

Replaced lead actress notwithstanding, the film performs its modest duties. It delivers mild lessons, a few jokes, and a dog-transformation subplot resolved by midnight. The cultural ledger remains almost entirely blank. Some films arrive bearing the weight of the moment. This one arrives bearing a glow-in-the-dark amulet and asks only that we not think too hard about the economics of Witch University.