The Devil Wears Prada 2 (2026)

Score: 3 / 5

I don't know quite what I wanted from what amounts to a legacy sequel to the 2006 runway runaway hit that Botha adapted and improved its source material. Frankly, it doesn't seem like the filmmakers of The Devil Wears Prada 2 knew what they wanted either. Settling for nostalgia over novelty, screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna (27 Dresses, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend) and director David Frankel (Hope Springs, Collateral Beauty, Marley & Me) work hard to recreate the tone, beats, and general sensation of their original masterpiece. What they perhaps don't do as well is craft a compelling story, but I'm not sure any of us really want or need that in a sequel to a film more about its effect and affect than anything else. So I'm not here to discuss the plot; you can discover that for yourself. In summation, I can tell you that I had a blast seeing this movie in cinemas, and that I satisfyingly checked my brain at the door to just have a good time. It delivers that in spades.

I do, however, think this film has a few noteworthy elements that, had I known heading into it, might have improved my attention and appreciation. Let us start with the world itself. Things have changed drastically in the past twenty years, and media is in chaos. Merging companies in an endless shuffle have only gotten worse, along with the proliferation of online "content" and clickbait and the near death of print media. Remember that twenty years ago, flip phones and Blackberries were the shit; now, they're so much dead tech. The film opens with a dramatic moment when, as Andy Sachs (the inimitable Anne Hathaway) accepts a prestigious journalism award at a gala, she and her entire newsroom are laid off via text message. Her speech, perhaps a little too on the nose for the first scene, brings us back to her ambitious character whose dreams are, once again, going to take some serious grit and guts to continue achieving.

So when Miranda (a typically glorious Meryl Streep) enters the picture, we're ready for their shenanigans. She and Runway are under fire for a puff piece ignoring -- arguably promoting -- sweatshop labor, a sure recipe for cancellation in our viral digital age. Perhaps unrealistically, Andy is brought in by the big boss of Runway's parent company to correct the problem and move the magazine into a bold, better new age. Yet Miranda was not told about this, and her stuck-in-the-mud, old-fashioned managerial attitude won't loose the reins without a fight. She's being watched by new assistants who constantly gossip and connive around her, hearkening back to Miranda's old abusive behaviors while relishing their new protection from such diabolic passive-aggression thanks to new HR policies. Andy is shocked, for example, to see Miranda hanging up her own coat in the office. It's hilarious, and oddly sad.

That's because the world now punishes (some) wicked bosses, valorizes remote work under the guise of "work/life balance," and cares less about social awareness or critical engagement in journalism than about monetization and success via clicks. Runway is dying, and Miranda can't save the sinking ship. Streep's performance, though not the Miranda we know and love to loathe, is knowing and nuanced despite some ham-fisted dialogue. She's unsure of her job, being constantly watched and reported on by overpaid underlings while attempting to make sense of social media and online noise, but she is still the best at what she does. Or, did. I thought of the song from White Christmas more than once: "What do you do with a general when he stops being a general?" Streep's softening makes her sad and confused, like a grandmother in early stages of dementia, grasping fiercely for those zingers whenever someone around her threatens to expose her vulnerability. 

Similarly, Emily and Nigel (a diva-esque Emily Blunt and a distressingly aging Stanley Tucci, both excellent if underused) are here with mostly nothing to do but to offer bitchy quips and glamorous looks. Their dialogue, along with most of the film's one-liners, desperately seek to warm us with overwrought and obvious throwbacks to the original film. Don't get me wrong; nostalgia sells, and there's nothing wrong with revisiting some of the lovely moments that we still watch (the first film is a regular watch for me when I've fallen ill, and I know others who do the same). But whereas previously we went on a journey with Hathaway's Andy, getting to know her character from the inside out and everyone else from the outside in. This time, we know everyone of consequence (minus a few new additions like Kenneth Branagh and Justin Theroux, who are easy enough to understand), so we're just bumping along between them, much like we might in a sitcom. 

Each beat of the plot is a hamfisted rehash of the original, from a high-stakes bid for impossible validation (in the first, an unpublished Harry Potter manuscript and in this, an interview with a reclusive billionaire-philanthropist played by Lucy Liu) to a new romantic liaison between Andy and the renovator of her new apartment (played by Patrick Brammall), who is clearly better than the men she juggled last time, but with whom Hathaway seems to beg to have chemistry with. No doubt due to its sinfully larger budget, this film does include many celebrity appearances, all of which really worked for me; Lady Gaga, playing herself, has a too-brief but delightful moment in a dick-measuring contest with Miranda before taking the stage to sing one of the three fabulous songs she recorded for this film. But then there's the ending, which turns abruptly from the rather grim realism of the plot, offering a deus ex machina wherein the machina is a billionaire who existentially saves journalism for the present. Maybe it's a good idea for Hollywood to produce more stories about billionaires choosing to give their ill-gotten gains back to society -- obviously, that's true -- but the lionizing of such people smacks of tone deafness in this particular story and at this particular time in real life.

Finally, the editing of this film simply didn't work for me. Previously, we had magnificent montages of various fashion walks, each of which told a specific and layered mini-story. We understood Andy's essential other-ness from the young, hot fashionistas of NYC from the music-led montage that opened the first film, whereas this film nods to that with its first three or so shots before scrapping the style altogether. A story literally about looking and grabbing/commanding attention should mirror that impetus in its own composition and structure, and this one inexplicably refuses to do so.

And Emily? That's all.