The Devil Wears Prada 2 Review: Anne Hathaway & Meryl Streep Movie Disappoints
Alright, everyone, gird your loins! The Devil Wears Prada 2 brings audiences back to Runway 20 years after Emily—sorry, Andy Sachs quit a job a million girls would kill to have. This sequel follows Andy (Anne Hathaway), now a very successful journalist who gets laid off and must take a job at Runway, working with her old boss, the ruthless Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep). A film that can best be described as a long-delayed family reunion, where it’s great to see everyone again, but the gathering isn’t quite what it used to be.
The Devil Wears Prada 2 suffers from what I call “The Men In Black Problem.” The 1997 Men In Black movie ends with Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones going their separate ways, with Agent J getting a new partner and K getting to live a normal life with the woman he loves. But when it was time to make Men In Black II, they realized you can’t have MIB without their dynamic duo, so they had to undo the ending of the original to bring J and K back together. The Devil Wears Prada features a beautiful ending, with Andy leaving the world of Runway and fashion behind, but seeing Miranda from a distance and giving a kind wave.
It’s not an ending that sets up a sequel at all, but you can’t have Devil Wears Prada without Andy and Miranda, so The Devil Wears Prada 2 quickly takes their closure from the first movie and reopens it. Now, to the credit of writer Aline Brosh McKenna, this film does everything it can to give Andy a very good reason to return to this world. Runway is in need of a new editor following a disastrous story; Andy has lost her job, and she sees an opportunity to also write an exposé on Priestly.
The highest compliment I can give The Devil Wears Prada 2 is how it delves into the changing landscape of journalism. It’s 2026, people don’t read magazines the way they did in 2006, and in an ever-evolving media landscape with layoffs, job cuts, and unpredictability, this film has struck a chord with the journalists who have gotten to see this movie early, like me. It’s not a challenge to relate to Andy, and this movie may get a few brownie points from other critics for diving into this very relevant subject matter and doing a good job with it.
It’s also worth noting just how lovely it is to see these actors back as these characters. Many never thought we’d see Hathaway and Streep as Andy and Miranda again, and these two step back into their roles so seamlessly. Hathaway is still charming and likable as Andy, while Streep brings back all her quiet ferocity as Miranda, while still imbuing her performance with vulnerability and nuance as this now-iconic character. The movie brings back some of their dynamic from the original, with Miranda talking down to Andy, but there is a new complexity to their relationship that grows as the film progresses.
Also back in the fray is Stanley Tucci as Nigel. Although a lot of his early lines sound like ADR, this fan favorite is back, and he’s as fun to watch as ever. He has moments during the last half hour that work particularly well. Emily Blunt’s return as Emily is also commendable. Emily now has a high-ranking role at Dior, and it’s impressive how, even though the anxiety and desperation her character was known for in the original isn’t part of her character anymore, Blunt still recaptures her energy so well.
But the problem with The Devil Wears Prada 2 is the story. The first movie had such a strong hook and a protagonist anyone could relate to. You didn’t have to be in the world of fashion to understand Andy’s stress and work anxieties, all while doing a job that you hope will lead you somewhere and sacrificing a lot of yourself for a chance of getting there. This sequel doesn’t have a strong hook. I can best describe it as the story of a few people trying to keep a magazine company alive, but at some point, you must ask: if this were an original story with characters I didn’t recognize, would I care about it?
In my case, the answer is definitely not. The narrative has a lot going on, and it can be quite tedious and lacking in the humanity and accessibility that made The Devil Wears Prada (2006) a classic. You can attach yourself to Andy’s journey in the first movie, but not so much in this one. This new installment gets so caught up in the business of the industry that we’re not really as invested in seeing how everything is impacting Andy as a character. She’s in the movie a lot, but we’re not always connecting with her on a personal level, even when she’s reacting to the events around her and doing what she can to help the situation.
It doesn’t feel like The Devil Wears Prada 2 was made because someone had a great idea for a story and decided to make a summer blockbuster out of it. It feels like a movie studio had a great idea for a summer blockbuster ($$$) and decided to make a story out of it. Sequels rarely reach the heights of their predecessors, but I was hoping for something closer than this. There’s a tonal shift in this movie where someone dies, and we hard cut to a funeral that had my audience laughing, and I’m not quite sure if that was intentional.
I do want to address the above clip, which has garnered a bit of controversy for featuring an Asian character named Jin Chao (which sounds a bit like a certain racial slur) who falls very cleanly into the stereotype of the “nerdy bookworm” who is smart, studious, unstylish, and socially awkward. There’s definitely some validity to the complaints, but I’m far less offended by this scene as an Asian person and much more offended by this scene as a writer.
We first meet Jin in this scene, and she first says why she’s been transferred to Andy’s department. Sure. Then, she suddenly starts doubting that Andy wants her and starts listing off all of her academic achievements from Yale to her ACT scores like a robot! Who talks like this?! Nobody! This is not how human beings talk! This is how writers give exposition in 2026! People just say every single thing about themselves to prove their quirks and intelligence the second we meet them, apparently. The information given here is so forced. If you’re going to write Asian stereotypes, at least have the decency to do it with well-written dialogue; that’s all I ask.
The Devil Wears Prada 2 also features a love interest for Andy. No, it’s not Adrian Grenier as Nate, the boyfriend who has gained a bit of notoriety over the years. She meets Peter (Patrick Brammall), and they end up hitting it off. Unfortunately, their scenes and storyline are a bit fleeting. It’s cute at first, but the movie forces an underdeveloped conflict between them halfway through for the sole purpose of getting him out of the movie for a good portion of the last hour of the film. It’s not enough to make you care. The inclusion of this storyline feels really tacked on, like a last-minute studio note. At least people have their opinions on Nate, whether positive or negative. I don’t think there’s much to Peter at all, even if Brammall does a good job with the role.
One of the more noteworthy ideas here is how it treats some of its legacy characters. A humorous scene has Miranda having to hang up her own coat due to HR complaints about her allegedly throwing her coat at people. She’s now the older employee unconcerned with using words that bother younger generations and turning her nose up at these attitudes, but as the movie progresses, it becomes clear that the film is not framing her as the antagonist. There’s always been a human behind the glitz and glamor, and the film does continue to interrogate not only who Miranda is, but also what she’s done to others.
There are times when The Devil Wears Prada 2 does feel like it leans a little heavier on the glamorization of the fashion industry rather than the first film’s biting satirization and critique, particularly when this movie essentially stops in its tracks to have Lady Gaga do a fashionable music performance. But even the first movie wasn’t immune to showing off those incredible costumes. It just did everything with a lot more soul to it.
Beyond that, I’ll praise the movie for shooting on location in New York City. I can tell when movies have fake NYC (again, I’m talking to you, Karate Kid: Legends), and here, you can tell Hathaway really is walking through midtown Manhattan on 49th Street and 6th Avenue. It’s a shame that the movie continues a trend in modern cinematography that uses a very shallow depth of field, making everything look a little too clean and less lived-in. This movie has the same cinematographer as the first movie, but there’s some texture that gets lost in modern filmmaking. Whether it’s the shift from 35mm film cameras to digital, or directional lighting to diffused lighting, The Devil Wears Prada 2 will forever be a product of its time, just like the original is.
While the original film has had quite the staying power, I don’t see that in the future of The Devil Wears Prada 2. Fans will get a kick out of seeing Hathaway, Streep, Blunt, and Tucci step back into their iconic roles, but I really wish the movie we got was more fun and had a stronger emotional core.
SCORE: 5/10
As ComingSoon’s review policy explains, a score of 5 equates to “Mediocre.” The positives and negatives wind up negating each other, making it a wash.
Disclosure: ComingSoon attended a press screening for our The Devil Wears Prada 2 review.
Source: Comingsoon.net