A touch stronger potion needed

Cast: Anne Hathaway, Octavia Spencer Director: Robert Zemeckis Duration: 1 h 46 m Available: Dec. 25 in select cinemas and on demand

According to the 30-year cycle theory of popular culture, anything in the zeitgeist of 1990 should be coming around again, right ... about ... now!

Ah, here it is. The Witches (1990), which starred Anjelica Huston as a nasty witch and Mai Zetterling as a kindly grandmother, has been remade as Roald Dahl's The Witches, now with Anne Hathaway and Octavia Spencer in those respective roles.

But why? The screenplay is pretty much the same. The special effects are better, but not that much better, particularly given that this is meant to be for children and shouldn't be so realistic as to give them nightmares.

The director is a bigger name, though again it's hard to know why Robert Zemeckis would want to remake a very middling hit from 30 years ago. (The Witches was 104th at the box office in 1990, a little below Nuns on the Run.)

The story is about a little boy (Jahzir Bruno) who is turned into a mouse by a witch, and has to find a way to turn himself back again, or at least to exact revenge on the evil enchantress and her cronies.

Hathaway, her accent schussing between mid-Siberia and Sweden, has a ball as the Grand High Witch, while Stanley Tucci gets a fun bit as an unctuous hotel manager. Rent it anew or check out the original — it's all the same to me. ΠΠ½