Film Review: "The Devil Wears Prada 2" is a Stylish Reunion That Fans Will Enjoy — With Reservations

Twenty years ago, The Devil Wears Prada left an imprint on pop culture so deep it's still being felt. The fashion. The performances. The razor-sharp dialogue. The film defined a generation's idea of ambition, identity, and the price of success. So when word came that Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, and Stanley Tucci were all returning — along with director David Frankel and writer Aline Brosh McKenna — the question was never whether audiences would show up. It was whether The Devil Wears Prada 2 could justify the reunion. The answer is complicated.

The Devil Wears Prada 2 picks up nearly two decades later. Andy Sachs (Hathaway) is a respected journalist accepting a major award when she's pulled back into the orbit of Miranda Priestly (Streep) and Runway magazine — this time as Features Editor, tasked with landing an impossible cover interview while Miranda navigates a PR scandal, a corporate power struggle, and a potential hostile takeover. The plot is ambitious in scope: declining print media, the fashion industry's ethical blind spots, and a collision between the women who have spent years defining themselves against each other. When it works, it really works. But it doesn't always work.

The film's greatest asset is exactly what it promises on the poster. Streep, Hathaway, Blunt, and Tucci are magnetic every moment they share the screen, and there's genuine pleasure in watching these actors slip back into these roles. The production is gorgeous — the looks, the locations, the costumes — and Theodore Shapiro's score is complemented by a Lady Gaga soundtrack contribution that delivers. Gaga's three original songs are a legitimate highlight.

Where the film struggles is in the writing. The original Devil Wears Prada was defined by quotable, knife-sharp dialogue — lines that entered the cultural lexicon and stayed there. The sequel rarely reaches those heights. The callbacks feel more like boxes being checked than organic story moments, and the retread is sometimes painfully obvious: Milan replaces Paris and a last-minute string-pulling scene that echoes the Harry Potter book moment from the original.

The characters fare unevenly in the transition. Miranda, now a co-lead rather than an elusive antagonist, loses something essential. The original film's power came from experiencing her through the terrified eyes of those around her; here, she's demystified into a savvy business operator with a warm home life. Streep is as commanding as ever — she could play Miranda in her sleep and still hold the room — but the character as written simply isn't as frightening or as fascinating as she once was. Andy, meanwhile, feels fully formed in the film's opening scenes before weirdly regressing the moment she re-enters Miranda's world. Nigel (Tucci) is a warm, welcome presence, though the script keeps him largely static. The most jarring transformation belongs to Emily (Blunt), who has pivoted hard into villain territory — a strange choice for a character who inspired so much of the original's fan devotion.

The new additions are largely thin. Justin Theroux's tech-mogul antagonist is so broadly drawn that he lands closer to a cartoon than to commentary. Lucy Liu's Sasha Barnes brings more intrigue, but is underserved by the script. An unnecessary romance subplot for Andy adds runtime without adding much else.

There are genuine risks taken — a third act that subverts expectations and a closing beat that earns real ambiguity. Those moments suggest the bolder film this could have been. But they're outnumbered by scenes content to coast on nostalgia, delivering a sequel far less meaningful or groundbreaking as the original.

The Devil Wears Prada 2 is ultimately a film that gives fans what they love most and occasionally something they didn't know they wanted — but too often settles for the former at the expense of the latter. The runway looks great. The fashion is impeccable. The performances make it worth the trip. The rest of it? A little too safe in a film that, twenty years on, had nothing left to lose.

I give The Devil Wears Prada 2 2.5 out of 5 stars.

The Devil Wears Prada 2 opens exclusively in theaters on May 1st, 2026.