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PG-13
for strong language and some suggestive references.
Starring
Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, Stanley Tucci, Kenneth Branagh
Director
David Frankel
Producer
Wendy Finerman
Genres
Comedy
Drama
Released by
20th Century Studios on
5/1/2026
Nationwide
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Trailer
Review
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single movie in possession of a good box office fortune must be in want of a sequel. (With apologies to Jane Austen.)
There can be little other explanation why, some twenty years after the release of the moderately enjoyable but by no means extraordinary The Devil Wears Prada, a creatively bankrupt follow-up has been foisted upon the filmgoing community. This probably sounds unfairly negative - the original is widely beloved and brought in a tidy $125M domestic in 2006 dollars - but this is certainly among the more extreme examples of nostalgia-mining. It is the kind of movie you attend simply to catch up with the characters, hear a few barbed one-liners from Meryl Streep, and ignore the turgid, mostly pointless storyline. It is, in many ways, the fashion world's equivalent of Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
The jaunty trailer for The Devil Wears Prada 2 promises something the movie fails to deliver: a revival of the snarky banter and edgy interactions that made the first two-thirds of the original so much fun. Sadly, all the "good stuff" is packed into that three-minute piece of marketing genius. The remaining 110 minutes of the actual film operate at a considerably lower level. All the primary players have returned: director David Frankel, screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna, and stars Anne Hathaway, Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt, and Stanley Tucci. I am quite certain there were many commas and zeros on those paychecks.
The film reprises nearly everything that was mediocre about the first installment while discarding far too much of what was effective. To quote my review from twenty years ago: "Its trite message... rings false, and the cloying ending feels like it was written for another film then tacked onto the end of this one." Those words are even more applicable to the sequel. It offers plenty of messages - writ large so they cannot be missed - but no true depth. It is a collage of happily-ever-after endings that feel unearned, populated by subplots and characters that take up space without justifying their existence. As for the satirical zingers and acerbic one-liners? You must hunt diligently to find them and be very generous if you want to laugh.
In terms of narrative focus, the movie is equally confused. I suppose the bottom line is a tardy acknowledgment that print journalism is dying and that AI and uncaring billionaires are poised to gut the cultural core of the artistic community. The plot mechanics contrive to bring former personal assistant Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway), now an award-winning features writer, back into the orbit of her former boss, Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep). It seems a whiff of scandal has descended upon Runway magazine, and Miranda's septuagenarian boss thinks Andy - with her sterling reputation and solid writing chops - is the ideal person to clean up the mess. Along the way, Andy crosses paths with Nigel Kipling (Stanley Tucci) and Emily Charlton (Emily Blunt), finds new love with the man who renovated her apartment, and discovers Kenneth Branagh wandering around Miranda's house, seemingly waiting for his next outing as Poirot. (I may have invented that last bit. Or perhaps not.)
The biggest disappointment, despite the sloppiness of McKenna's cobbled-together screenplay, is the presentation of Miranda two decades after her first tornadic screen appearance. Streep has returned, but her performance is strangely subdued. Miranda seems old and tired. Her put-downs, once capable of making even the most stalwart underling cringe, have a stale, obligatory taste. When she first encounters Andy, she seemingly fails to recognize her former assistant. While this is intended to underscore Miranda's cold-bloodedness - where every relationship is transitory and transactional - it made me immediately wonder about the onset of dementia.
As sequels go, this is far from the worst. It delivers on core expectations without ever expending the energy to do anything truly creative. There are a few entertaining sequences along the way (keep an eye out for a famous singer), a handful of cameos from people I did not recognize, and the occasional castrating barb from Miranda that hits home. And, if Streep and Blunt are a little disappointing, Stanley Tucci is in fine form. Fifteen minutes into the film, I was desperately wishing they had made the story about Nigel.
So, like so many sequels, fans will likely be satisfied while non-believers will give it a pass. This is not destination cinema. The Devil Wears Prada 2 is harmless enough, although it exists more as an afterthought than a legitimate continuation of a story that was fully told twenty years ago after the first 105 minutes.
© 2026 James Berardinelli
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