Twenty years after the primary instalment catapulted Anne Hathaway and Emily Blunt onto Hollywood’s A-List, The Devil Wears Prada is again with a second incarnation. The sequel reunites the pair with Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci for a enjoyable, frothy – however not very devilish – time.
Set at Runway, a thinly veiled fictional model of Vogue journal, a lot has modified on this planet of journalism for the reason that first movie was launched in 2006.
Anne Hathaway’s Andy Sachs has spent the intervening years turning into a “Serious Journalist”, with awards galore beneath her belt. In 2026’s precarious media panorama, although, her job is worn out. She, considerably miraculously, finds herself again at Runway as options editor, not a harried underling.
Delightfully, the gang is again collectively for half 2. The Devil Wears Prada’s mastery was all the time its actors, and the returning foremost forged are in advantageous kind right here. Andy (Hathaway) now has an assured confidence that was simply budding within the first movie.
The progress in her character is plausible and real looking, and as an actor, Hathaway is edging in the direction of greatness, one teary-eyed smile at a time. Andy’s elevated place at Runway permits the dynamic between her and her icy boss, Miranda Priestley (Meryl Streep), to shift.
Miranda de-fanged
Fun is poked at Miranda’s behaviour, which is now topic to HR guidelines and laws. Where as soon as she struck worry into the hearts of all she encountered, delivering caustic strains in a low sardonic murmur, Streep’s efficiency, whereas fuller and extra rounded, de-fangs Miranda.
With disappointingly fewer barbs, she is much less “devil”, delivering a extra complicated portrait of a profitable girl struggling to maintain a dying business afloat. Much of the villainy is handed as a substitute to Emily (Emily Blunt). All eye rolls and sharp edges, Blunt has a ball reprising the position that made her a star.
She is given extra display screen time on this instalment, with a love curiosity and a life exterior of labor. She is magnetic in each body she inhabits, bringing comedy and deliciously over-the-top cattiness.
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Stanley Tucci’s Nigel, a relic of the bygone days of print vogue journalism, radiates a heat that grounds the movie. His infinite persistence with the nonsensical behaviour of these round him, delivered with Tucci’s attribute panache, steadies the ship when all threatens to spiral into parody.
In 2026, the romantic comedy is a lesser spotted animal in Hollywood in comparison with when the primary movie was launched. This sequel remembers acquainted tropes of the early noughties rom-com: pop music blaring over avenue scenes of characters talking on telephones, fast cuts between vogue exhibits and concrete life, massive cities rendered in gloriously lit evening scenes.
The “rom” a part of rom-com, although, may have been left up to now for this sequel. Patrick Brammall is criminally underused as Peter, a love curiosity for Andy. Their dalliance provides little to her character or the story, and by no means meaningfully develops or resolves.
Journalism SOS
Story-wise, it feels as if the film-makers needed to touch upon the state of journalism. In today’s world awash with algorithms, misinformation and the relentless churn of on-line content material, there was actually potential to mine, however these themes are talked about after which glossed over.
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This could be forgivable, given the sugary tone of the movie, however consequently the drama turns into just a little convoluted and at occasions will get in the way in which of the connection dynamics, which is admittedly why we’re all within the cinema within the first place. Minor characters performed by B.J. Novak, Kenneth Branagh, Lucy Liu and Justin Theroux typically lean too far into caricature and disrupt the tone of the movie. Their inclusion is one other pointless dilution of the core 4’s chemistry.
The Devil Wears Prada 2 is just a little lengthy and Meryl Streep’s efficiency lacks the chew that made the primary movie so memorable. But attending to see Hathaway, Streep, Blunt and Tucci work collectively once more is joyful and escapist.
This movie gained’t change your life. But it isn’t making an attempt to. It tells you precisely what it’s within the advertising and marketing: a celebratory reunion of the actors and a enjoyable retreading of acquainted floor. Go for the characters, keep for the nostalgia.