'The Devil Wears Prada 2' review: Stylish sequel finds a way to stay relevant
- Nate Adams
- May 1
- 4 min read
Courtesy of 20th Century Studios
Gird your loins. Miranda Priestly is back.
Twenty years later, the formidable editor of New York fashion magazine Runway still stalks rooms in stilettos, serving the same icy precision and lethal side-eye in “The Devil Wears Prada 2.” But this sequel is doing something unexpected for a movie about couture and cutthroat ambition: it is genuinely interested in what journalism actually looks like in 2026. Which is to say, hanging by a thread.
No one was exactly begging “The Devil Wears Prada 2” to grapple with media consolidation, billionaire buyouts, or the slow hollowing-out of institutional journalism in the age of social algorithms. And yet, here it is, quietly waving a white flag at the reality that magazines, like newspapers before them, are fighting for survival. Runway is no longer just deciding hemlines; it is chasing clicks, pleasing corporate overlords, and desperately attempting to remain culturally relevant in a landscape that punishes patience and nuance. The shock is not that the film addresses these issues, but that it does so with sincerity.
Miranda, once again played with thrilling dominance by Meryl Streep, is no longer permitted the excesses that once defined her reign. Throwing coats at assistants, humiliating staff, or casually fat-shaming employees is no longer considered appropriate, and the film smartly lets her feel that reckoning rather than sanding down her edges (who knew the magazine had an HR department?!). This is what a good sequel should be doing: interrogating the world that made the original possible, and asking whether its power structures can survive unchanged.
That does not mean nostalgia is absent. The gravitational pull of its cast is undeniable. Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, and Stanley Tucci return with heightened star power, and it is a testament to the filmmakers that the reunion feels purposeful instead of corporate. This is not a hollow reenactment or a greatest-hits remix. “Prada 2” has teeth, and occasionally it bites.
Personality-wise, very little has changed. Andy Sachs (Hathway) is still recognizable as the beady-eyed, ambitious journalist we met in 2006, only now she has the résumé to match her confidence. When the film opens, she is working at a respected news organization that promptly collapses after a mega-billionaire acquisition strips it of its journalistic spine. With her principles intact but her job gone, Andy finds herself unable to dismiss the opportunity to return to Runway as a features editor just as the magazine becomes embroiled in controversy over a questionable corporate partnership.
What she finds is a publication in decline. Budgets are slashed, prestige has eroded, and metrics rule everything. The irony is sharp: Miranda Priestly, once the final word on taste, is now forced to adopt a hollow corporate version of “body positivity” and brand-safe virtue, none of which she seems to believe for a second. The film gets real mileage out of watching Miranda chafe against this neutered version of power. She takes Ubers instead of private cars. She flies coach instead of first class. For her, these are genuine indignities, and the movie plays them with knowing, cruel humor.
If there is a flaw, it is the film’s inability to fully trust its strongest material. The narrative is cluttered with romantic subplots that feel obligatory rather than organic. Andy’s limp courtship with an Australian real estate developer, played by Patrick Brammall, is particularly inert, a chemistry-free digression that adds nothing to her arc. Kenneth Branagh fares little better as Miranda’s beau, who also happens to be a string quartet violinist. These diversions dilute the film’s sharper observations and distract from its central conflict.
The cameos are plentiful, though the absence of Anna Wintour looms large, especially given how unapologetically Miranda remains modeled on her. Emily Blunt, thankfully, arrives with purpose. Her Emily has flourished, now running marketing at Dior, and her best scene involves turning Miranda’s own weapons against her in a bracing exchange that crackles with long-simmering resentment. Blunt clearly delights in returning to the world that jumpstarted her career, and the film is smarter whenever it lets her chew the scenery.
Stanley Tucci, meanwhile, remains the secret weapon. His presence alone reminds you why the original endured for two decades. Warm, biting, and impeccably calibrated, Tucci operates as the film’s moral center without ever slipping into sentimentality.
Ultimately, “The Devil Wears Prada 2” works because it understands why people loved the original and why merely repeating it would not be enough. With much of the original creative team back, including screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna and director David Frankel, the film respects the mechanics of that appeal while acknowledging that the world has shifted under its feet.
It is also striking to consider the cultural context. The first film counterprogrammed against “Superman Returns.” Twenty years later, the balance of power feels inverted. This movie is the event picture now, a glossy ensemble blockbuster about survival, relevance, and empire management. In this landscape, Miranda Priestly is not competing with superheroes. She is one.
Batman never stood a chance.
Grade: B
THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA 2 is now playing in theaters.
Comments