Film Review: The Devil Wears Prada 2

3.5 Stars

By Joseph Beyer | May 23, 2026

It’s been almost 20 years, believe it or not, since Meryl Streep’s iconic debut performance as the Runway fashion editor Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada. That original and delightful romp of a comedy made a big splash in 2006 and was largely seen as a thinly-veiled portrait of the real-life editor-in-chief of Vogue Magazine Anna Wintour (a famously icy executive).

The original combination of sharp-witted characters in Streep’s unflappable Priestly, along with Stanley Tucci as her fiercely loyal creative director Nigel Kipling, and a young(er) Anne Hathaway as “Andy” Sachs, the earnest assistant thrown into the mayhem of NYC’s fashion world, created an almost perfect cinematic alignment that would be hard to duplicate.

So if the original film was a Hermès Birkin bag of perfection, not even bringing the cast back together can stop the sequel from feeling a bit like fast fashion or a counterfeit Louis Vuitton.

Streep’s return as Priestly (the ruthless self-centered villain in the title) seems just as sharp and restrained as before and maybe even more interesting, as are the expected and effervescent starring reprises from Tucci and Hathaway. Emily Blunt also returns to reprise her former role, but now as a grown-up with sometimes secret ambitions. Fresh off Bridgerton fame, actress Simone Ashley steps in wonderfully as the new personal assistant Amari, who has the thankless task of trying to prevent her boss from violating a world of new office norms, none of which conform to her ruthless style.

All in all, the cast hits their expected sartorial marks, goes through the motions, and tries their best to reboot the fun.

In the first outing, a dazzling screenplay from writer Aline Brosh McKenna, based on the confessional novel by real-life magazine assistant Lauren Weisberger, gave the actors everything they needed, and director David Frankel’s instincts for fast pacing, energetic and explosive costume changes, and the buzz of New York City brought it all to life. It was a world that could only exist in a movie, and its sexy escapism was infectious.

But perhaps there’s just less of it this time around, and you can only demystify a hidden-world once, be genuinely surprised once, or be seduced by great characters once. To return, there must be something new to learn or discover—and to everyone’s credit, they try.

With wild story swings and exposition, unimaginably expensive NYC lifestyles that our characters supposedly inhabit, and the worn out plot-mechanics of a media world forced to reinvent itself for clicks, you will probably shake your head at why the plot takes so long to unfold while wishing you could see more montages of everyone’s outfit changes.

There’s a lackluster romantic subplot with little steam, absentminded trillionaires who seem to be on ketamine, characters transforming from analog to digital under new oppressive ownership, and a general message that the world has lost its beauty in favor of greed.

For those of us IRL, we can feel this every day, and it’s just a shame Prada 2 didn’t let us escape it more, if even for just 1 hour and 59 minutes.

Rated PG-13 for, we suppose, the fashion crime of wearing impractical or dangerous footwear for the occasion and mild adult-language, The Devil Wears Prada 2 is still playing in select theaters and expected to hit VOD and streaming platforms by mid-June.