The Devil Wears Prada 2 review: Blanched sequel doesn’t stand on its own

When The Devil Wears Prada was first released, it was well-liked. It was still the era of mid-budget cinema movies made largely for an adult audience, and the film was fun and frothy.

It was better than the book it was based on, a roman a clef by writer Lauren Weisberger, a former assistant to Anna Wintour at Vogue, it celebrated fashion and had some killer, quotable one-liners.

It made considerable buck, was nominated for two Oscars (one for Meryl Streep’s undeniable performance, one for costume designer Patricia Field) but it’s really been its rewatchability over the past 20 years that has elevated the film into the pantheon.

It also helped that esteem for Wintour has only grown, and she and the film’s fortunes, entwined, have pushed each other up to icon status.

As time marched on, the nostalgia of the movie, its bright visuals and the feelings it evoked of a proto-girlboss and glossy magazines era overtook any of The Devil Wears Prada’s flaws. You knew it wasn’t a perfect film, but you just didn’t care anymore that it wasn’t.

The sequel has the double-edged sword of existing goodwill and enormous expectations – but maybe one cancels the other out.

Is The Devil Wears Prada 2 a worthy follow-up? Yes and no.

Yes in that it does much of what it needs to do – Streep absolutely kills it and is able to bring so much pathos and depth to a character that belongs to that ice queen archetype, some of the fashions are fabulous, it’s always nice to hang out with Stanley Tucci’s Nigel Kipling, Anne Hathaway’s Andy still looks so hurt at the thought of disappointing Miranda, and loads of other familiar beats.

And, no in that the movie feels a lot longer than its two-hour runtime, that despite the heavier stakes, it’s somehow weightless because you know that its core conflicts will be easily resolved, it does Emily (Emily Blunt) dirty, there’s too much distracting fan service and too many cameos, and it generally feels insignificant.

It’s a real mixed bag, but one that should engender neither vicious hostility nor effusive praise. The Devil Wears Prada 2 is, in a word, adequate.

Writer Aline Brosh McKenna and director David Frankel, who both worked on the first movie, have situated the continuing story of Miranda, Andy, Nigel and Emily in the harsh reality of the contracting media industry in 2026.

As Nigel expounds to Andy, where there once was the budget for a month-long photo shoot in some far-flung spot its now two days in a local studio. Resources are diminished to the point of extinction, like Andy’s job at the serious newspaper from which she and her colleagues were abruptly sacked by text at the start of the film.

It evokes the hundreds of Washington Post reporters who were fired by email earlier this year, and while the movie was filmed before that, the spectre of Jeff Bezos haunts the film in the form of Justin Theroux who is cast as a ghastly and ridiculous stand-in named Benji Barnes.

The timing is kind of perfect because Runway has been embroiled in a scandal of its own and Andy is hired to bring credibility to the features department for the magazine-turned-cross platform media brand at a time when its future is far from assured.

The ripped-from-the-headlines context is unavoidable in telling any story about a fashion magazine in 2026 but The Devil Wears Prada 2’s resolution isn’t just optimistic, it’s a Pollyanna cop-out.

If anything, the movie is too referential. It’s not just Theroux’s Bezos-esque tech titan dismissing human creativity in favour of an AI future, it certainly has opinions about MacKenzie Scott and Lauren Sanchez (which, to be fair, so do we), management consultants and media empire nepo babies (B.J. Novak doing what he does best, playing the smarmy guy you want to punch).

There are plenty of things for existing fans to clutch to.

A reined-in Miranda is still chauffeured in a Maybach but she now has to hang her own coat, and her first assistant (Simone Ashley) is on hand to point out the things she can no longer say in the workplace (trying to eke out “body positivity” as if a white flag was stuck in her throat).

These moments will delight but, after the first viewing anyway, no particular zinger is as memorable as anything from the first film. In part because it gave too much focus to easter eggs nodding to the OG, which leaves little space for would-be classic moments to form.

There’s no new cerulean jumper speech that convincingly argues for the continued existence of Runway, no “Florals? For spring? Groundbreaking” jibe, because overall, the movie is flat and blanched, despite all the sequined outfits.

It may well be that love for The Devil Wears Prada 2 will grow over the next two decades. Maybe we’ll look back on it as a moment when we thought fashion magazines still had a fighting chance, that tech could be beaten by altruism and appreciation for something beautiful and good.

But the only way that’s going to happen is if everyone’s annual rewatch is a double feature.

This sequel doesn’t stand on its own, it’s merely an addendum. If you don’t think about it too much, that can be enough for what it is – just.

Rating: 3/5

The Devil Wears Prada 2 is in cinemas