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I was pretty well prepared to hate this movie, because the original was surprisingly good and didn't really call out for a sequel. But the results are pretty good, even if they have to go through some pretty hefty gymnastics to get all the principal characters back together again.
If you remember, at the end of our last installment, Andrea (Anne Hathaway) had quit the fashion magazine Runway because she felt that her principles were better than the lifestyle the job required, and she really wanted to be a journalist anyway -- so she gets hired at a newspaper as a writer. Life at the magazine goes on as usual. In the real world, her presence there would have been forgotten within about 2 weeks or less... but this is the movies, so 20 years later, when Andrea gets downsized from her newspaper job at the beginning of this new movie, she makes an angry speech at an awards banquet that goes viral. Meanwhile, Runway is in the toilet, as are all magazines these days, and it hasn't helped that its editor, the infamous Miranda Priestly, is being raked over the social media coals by the reaction to a carelessly-done publicity stunt. So the magazine's CEO, having seen the viral speech by Andrea, decides to bring her back as the new features editor to help right the ship. Never mind that she was only an assistant to an assistant when she worked there the first time and barely had any interaction with the CEO character. (Maybe none, I'm not sure.)
Anyway, due to the publicity scandal, Miranda is having to do a lot of butt-kissing with advertisers, including Dior, one of their biggest accounts, whose advertising budget just happens to now be controlled by ...Emily, who was Miranda's assistant in the first film.
See what I mean about the story gymnastics?
The only character who has returned basically unchanged from the first movie is Stanley Tucci's "Nigel." That's a good thing, because he was one of the best things about the original show and he's really good in this one too.
So, on to the problems. Outside of the story leaps, I would have to say the dialogue is not nearly as quotable this time around. There are a lot of good lines, but nothing on the equal of "Yes, move at a glacial pace...you know how that thrills me." The original movie had all sorts of long speeches and pithy one-liners by all of the principals, but this movie, being a 2026 product vs. a 2006 one, consists of way shorter sentences for the most part. Can't risk losing anyone's four-second attention span, you know.
Miranda (Meryl Streep) inhabits the role as completely as she did in the 2006 film, but isn't nearly as fun this time around because she's kinda had the wind knocked out of her sails by the realities of today's media world. She comes off as somebody who's now a bit worried about her future, which was not a concern in the first movie. She had the world by the tail then, but now she's being whipped around a bit and it's not nearly as entertaining.
The story, leaps in logic aside, is decent, with some interesting, if improbable, twists. I'm not going to go into all of it here, but suffice to say it involves a lot of backstabbing and dealmaking which I guess must go on in the publishing industry, well probably any industry if we're really being honest here.
The soundtrack consists of a bunch of pounding songs played over various fashion shows or parties, and performed by dance-music artists of today, especially Lady Gaga, who is featured in three songs. The sound is terrific, although the music seems to be mixed louder than in your typical movie, compared with the dialogue. There's a good deal of bass thump, which is great.
Since the movie lives in the world of fashion, I suppose a comment about that is fitting. I know nothing about fashion, but I thought the women's outfits were way more attractive in the first movie. Emily Blunt's hair was way more attractive last time, too...but then everyone is 20 years older. It'd be interesting to see what someone who actually knows about that world thought about that topic.
An interesting aside: In the original movie, when the various people are pitching article ideas to Miranda, somebody suggests doing an article featuring 'florals.' Miranda gives her a withering look and says (while rolling her eyes), "Florals? In spring? Groundbreaking." In THIS movie, one of the early scenes shows a huge banner outside of a Runway fashion show, and the banner says "RUNWAY Spring Florals." I thought that was a hilarious callback that showed just how much they're scraping the bottom of the barrel for ideas now.
All of the four original actors have a good deal of fun revisiting their characters. I just wish they'd had a little more saucy dialog to run with. At the end of the day, this is a comedy that kind of takes itself too seriously.
2.5 out of four stars from me, reserving the right to add or subtrack a half-star upon rewatching the film. (I've only seen it once but my wife wants to watch it again, so we're going to do that this weekend.)
I was pretty well prepared to hate this movie, because the original was surprisingly good and didn't really call out for a sequel. But the results are pretty good, even if they have to go through some pretty hefty gymnastics to get all the principal characters back together again.
If you remember, at the end of our last installment, Andrea (Anne Hathaway) had quit the fashion magazine Runway because she felt that her principles were better than the lifestyle the job required, and she really wanted to be a journalist anyway -- so she gets hired at a newspaper as a writer. Life at the magazine goes on as usual. In the real world, her presence there would have been forgotten within about 2 weeks or less... but this is the movies, so 20 years later, when Andrea gets downsized from her newspaper job at the beginning of this new movie, she makes an angry speech at an awards banquet that goes viral. Meanwhile, Runway is in the toilet, as are all magazines these days, and it hasn't helped that its editor, the infamous Miranda Priestly, is being raked over the social media coals by the reaction to a carelessly-done publicity stunt. So the magazine's CEO, having seen the viral speech by Andrea, decides to bring her back as the new features editor to help right the ship. Never mind that she was only an assistant to an assistant when she worked there the first time and barely had any interaction with the CEO character. (Maybe none, I'm not sure.)
Anyway, due to the publicity scandal, Miranda is having to do a lot of butt-kissing with advertisers, including Dior, one of their biggest accounts, whose advertising budget just happens to now be controlled by ...Emily, who was Miranda's assistant in the first film.
See what I mean about the story gymnastics?
The only character who has returned basically unchanged from the first movie is Stanley Tucci's "Nigel." That's a good thing, because he was one of the best things about the original show and he's really good in this one too.
So, on to the problems. Outside of the story leaps, I would have to say the dialogue is not nearly as quotable this time around. There are a lot of good lines, but nothing on the equal of "Yes, move at a glacial pace...you know how that thrills me." The original movie had all sorts of long speeches and pithy one-liners by all of the principals, but this movie, being a 2026 product vs. a 2006 one, consists of way shorter sentences for the most part. Can't risk losing anyone's four-second attention span, you know.
Miranda (Meryl Streep) inhabits the role as completely as she did in the 2006 film, but isn't nearly as fun this time around because she's kinda had the wind knocked out of her sails by the realities of today's media world. She comes off as somebody who's now a bit worried about her future, which was not a concern in the first movie. She had the world by the tail then, but now she's being whipped around a bit and it's not nearly as entertaining.
The story, leaps in logic aside, is decent, with some interesting, if improbable, twists. I'm not going to go into all of it here, but suffice to say it involves a lot of backstabbing and dealmaking which I guess must go on in the publishing industry, well probably any industry if we're really being honest here.
The soundtrack consists of a bunch of pounding songs played over various fashion shows or parties, and performed by dance-music artists of today, especially Lady Gaga, who is featured in three songs. The sound is terrific, although the music seems to be mixed louder than in your typical movie, compared with the dialogue. There's a good deal of bass thump, which is great.
Since the movie lives in the world of fashion, I suppose a comment about that is fitting. I know nothing about fashion, but I thought the women's outfits were way more attractive in the first movie. Emily Blunt's hair was way more attractive last time, too...but then everyone is 20 years older. It'd be interesting to see what someone who actually knows about that world thought about that topic.
An interesting aside: In the original movie, when the various people are pitching article ideas to Miranda, somebody suggests doing an article featuring 'florals.' Miranda gives her a withering look and says (while rolling her eyes), "Florals? In spring? Groundbreaking." In THIS movie, one of the early scenes shows a huge banner outside of a Runway fashion show, and the banner says "RUNWAY Spring Florals." I thought that was a hilarious callback that showed just how much they're scraping the bottom of the barrel for ideas now.
All of the four original actors have a good deal of fun revisiting their characters. I just wish they'd had a little more saucy dialog to run with. At the end of the day, this is a comedy that kind of takes itself too seriously.
2.5 out of four stars from me, reserving the right to add or subtrack a half-star upon rewatching the film. (I've only seen it once but my wife wants to watch it again, so we're going to do that this weekend.)
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