The reviews for one of the biggest movie events of the year, The Devil Wears Prada 2, are in, with critics weighing in as Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) saunters back onto screens two decades after she “that’s all-ed” her way to infamy.
Arriving on a wave of massive hype and a buzzy press tour, the sequel follows Miranda and her former assistants Emily (Emily Blunt) and Andy (Anne Hathaway) as they battle the decline of print media and strive to save Runway magazine.
To avoid moving at a glacial pace, let’s get into what critics are saying about The Devil Wears Prada 2. Overall, the sequel currently holds a 77 per cent score on Rotten Tomatoes, which is to movie reviews what an unpublished manuscript is to Miranda’s twins — the bible.
But like anything, there’s lots of grey (cerulean) area in between, so here’s a review roundup from groundbreaking, to meh, to a level of scathing that recalls Miranda when someone suggests florals for spring.
Groundbreaking
On the more glowing end, The Daily Telegraph gave the film four out five stars, praising Streep and Hathaway as being at “the respective peak of their comedic powers”.
Also bestowing a four-star review, The Sydney Morning Herald likewise commended the performances of the cast — deeming it the movie’s “greatest strength” — and said the script is “artful” for its “blending of the new and the old and the serious and the silly”.
Elsewhere, The Australian described the movie in four-star review as “deliciously funny fluff” that also stays “passionate and surprisingly affecting”, while Little White Lies said it “scratches every itch a legacy sequel ought to”, and the San Francisco Chronicle rejoiced that the sequel is “not the Temu redo it could have been”.
Summing up this side of the reviews — which collectively agree the sequel properly honours the legacy of the original — AV Club said the movie “still gets the essence of what made the original a hit” and The Atlantic said it “has plenty of breezy fun probing the dilemmas of modern media without abandoning the glitz that made the original so enduring”.
Meh
The consensus of critics operating somewhere in the middle seems to be that the film is what you make of it. If you go in expecting frivolous, breezy fun, you’ll leave satisfied, but some fans (and reviewers) might still be left wanting more.
Leading the charge of that middle-ground, The Guardian said the movie is simply “good-natured, buoyant entertainment” in a three-star review, while The Hollywood Reporter said “the movie is best when it sticks to fluffy, fun nostalgia rather than shooting for substance”.
That sentiment of “fluffy fun” was echoed by Substack review page Girl Culture, which described the movie as a “big slice of angel cake” in that it’s “nice while you’re watching, but doesn’t leave much to chew on”.
Repeating a similar view, The Irish Times said the movie “may be one of those so-so sequels that, a few years after it has progressed to streaming, seems to have scarcely ever existed”.
PEDESTRIAN.TV’s own editorial team was equally divided. Editorial Director Alex Bruce-Smith reckons it was fun (if grim re: the state of media), but too fast paced and less grounded in reality than the OG.
Some actual quotes overheard in our newsroom included: “I didn’t feel like the assistants were fully formed people off-screen” and “it felt like the Sex and the City movie — giving us too much glamour and missing the juxtaposition of the real-world dynamics from the original”.
On the other hand, Entertainment Editor Lachlan Guertin loved it, saying that even though it felt like a horror movie for journalists at times, it was overall a “very fun, nostalgia-filled flick packed with celeb cameos and subtle references to the first film that’ll make you want to book a trip to NYC and listen to Lady Gaga on repeat”.
Scathing
On the lower end of the spectrum, there were some critics who might have Miranda contacting Leslie to see what she can do to minimise all the press on all this.
In a less-than-flattering review, the Los Angeles Times described the flick as an “expensive knockoff”, while San Jose Mercury News said it was “not worth the wait” and lamented the feeling that “it came off the rack too soon”.
Elsewhere, The Seattle Times described it as “flat Champagne: maybe worth drinking in a pinch, but unsatisfying”, while The Wrap said “this film could have been a Zoom call”.
In perhaps the most cutting take, especially in the world of Runway, IndieWire said the sequel is “the fast fashion of movies”. Don’t let Miranda read this.
Of course, the beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so it’s ultimately up to you what you make of the sequel. It officially hit Aussie screens today, so go forth and make up your own mind! That’s all.
Lead images: The Devil Wears Prada 2 and X
The post Is The Devil Wears Prada 2 Any Good? The Reviews Are In And They’re Wildly Mixed appeared first on PEDESTRIAN.TV .
