- Title: The Devil Wears Prada 2
- IMDb: link
Twenty years later, The Devil Wears Prada 2 reunites Anne Hathaway, Meryl Streep, Stanley Tucci, and Emily Blunt. With none of the characters having changed in any notable way, a recently unemployed Andy (Hathaway) returns to Runway with the magazine in desperate need of an image makeover after a dreadful snafu has put the brand, and an ungrateful Miranda Priestly (Streep), in hot water.
With a little too much nostalgic winking directly at the camera for my tastes, the sequel to the 2006 film is mostly fine with actors stepping back into their Prada pumps and Gucci loafers. The sequel doesn’t offer much of a reason for bringing them back, other than to make some early commentary on corporate cost-cutting culture before jumping back into old patterns and hijinks.
Although struggling with political correctness, Miranda is still the tireless tyrant she was in the original who not only resents Andy’s return and offer of help but, for some reason, pretends to not even remember her which makes her come off as daft or senile more than self-absorbed. And, if anything, the men get it even worse than before Tucci being the only exception that isn’t bland, boring, or outright stupid.
There’s still office drama and the need to save the magazine and the still quite terrible Miranda whose a borderline caricature of herself 20 years later. The only real change this time around is that Andy is working on stories (such as getting the magazine an interview with Lucy Liu‘s character who, in the fashion of today’s celebrity, seems to be famous for being famous) rather than fetching coffee. Tracie Thoms returns as apparently Andy’s only non-work friend, and Justin Theroux steps in as the new forgettable love interest.
More memorable for moments, in both good and bad ways, than any real plot points and story, the sequel does deliver some fun such as Emily’s (Blunt) reaction to seeing Andy and Miranda together again. The sole purpose of Aline Brosh McKenna‘s script seems to be to allow these actors to inhabit these characters one more time without necessarily giving them anything interesting to do. It is fun to see them together again, but once the nostalgia runs out there’s not much else to keep your attention.
