The Devil Wears Prada 2
Review: The long awaited sequel coming 20 years after the first film, this film is a worthy successor to the iconic 2006 film. While I don’t think it’s quite as good as the first film, I did enjoy it just as much. They did a good job portraying the modern day state of media, how difficult the transition can be for traditional outlets, while also managing to capture a lot of the nostalgia and sentiment from the original. We of course see the return of the big four, Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, and Stanley Tucci who all slid back into their roles like it was nothing. While Tucci is easily my favorite part of both films, Streep is (obviously) the standout. She stepped back into the role of Miranda Priestly so well that it’s spooky. I really loved what they did with Miranda in this film, giving her some positive moments, but not trying to give her a character arc or redemption. I wouldn’t consider that a spoiler. Sorry if you do. But they do keep her as the titular Prada clad devil. I’m sure we will see this earning some awards nominations for it’s costume design, but this movie was clearly made for the audiences not the awards. It was an absolute delight to see a good quality popcorn movie that will drive people to the theaters (more on that below). This movie will surely draw in a younger audience that wasn’t quite old enough to enjoy the original upon release, but was clearly made with fans of the original in mind and I think that’s a wonderful thing. It features a lot of cameos, supporting characters, and various strings, but none overshadow the main gist of the movie and I never found any of them distracting. Well except for a couple (more on that further below). Overall, I’d call this a win.
High: I’m really digging the current state of the movie theater over the past couple months. This film now marks the 4th American film to cross the $500m mark at the box office (after ‘Project Hail Mary,’ ‘The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,’ & ‘Michael’) and there are several more coming soon that I think will hit that too, plus a couple that will hit a billion. People are going out to the movie theaters for films like this and I just love to see it.
Low: The one thing that did leave a bad taste in my mouth from this film was Justin Theroux’s performance. It just felt like he was in an entirely different movie than everyone else. His character was definitely meant to be an over the top caricature that was out of touch, but it just felt like it was out of a much sillier (& dumber) movie than this. And the makeup they had him in looked like something Mike Myers would’ve donned in ‘Austin Powers.’ I also found it wholly unnecessary for Andy Sachs to have a love interest in this movie. I’m all for giving your female lead a fun low stakes relationship just for the heck of it, but they started trying to introduce conflict that needed actual resolution, and that’s just not what this movie should be about.
Rating: 7.5/10
