The Devil Wears Prada 2 Review: New Sequel Is Fun But Doesn’t Come Close To The Original

It probably hasn’t escaped your attention that Hollywood is deep in the throes of a reboot frenzy right now.

Off the top of my head, the last few years alone have served up a Freaky Friday sequel, a musical remake of Mean Girls, a part two of The Craft and follow-ups to everything from Beetlejuice and Happy Gilmore to The Matrix and Top Gun with varying levels of critical and commercial success.

And that’s without even touching the upcoming revivals of Legally Blonde, 13 Going On 30 and Pirates Of The Caribbean currently in the pipeline, alongside whichever animated Disney classic is getting the live-action remake treatment next.

Somewhat inevitably, it’s now The Devil Wears Prada’s turn to get the sequel treatment, 20 years after the world first saw Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway in action as the tyrannical magazine editor Miranda Priestly and her doe-eyed assistant Andy Sachs.

Given the enduring popularity of the original 2006 film, and how engrained it is in pop culture, it was always going to take a cinematic miracle for the imaginatively-titled The Devil Wears Prada 2 to live up to its iconic predecessor.

Indeed, it’s probably no great spoiler to say that it never really manages it – but that’s not to say that The Devil Wears Prada 2 is a bad film, albeit not a hugely memorable one.

We pick up two decades on from the original film, Miranda Priestly still reigning supreme at the head of Runway magazine and on the cusp of a promotion at its publishing house, when a PR disaster puts her head squarely on the cancel culture chopping block.

As the higher-ups grow desperate to turn around Runway’s fortunes, they opt to hire a prestigious, award-winning journalist – who just happens to be Miranda’s old assistant – as its new features editor, in an attempt to indicate that the brand is moving with the times. And that’s how, once again, Andy Sachs comes to find herself working for Miranda Priestly.

Over its two-hour runtime, The Devil Wears Prada 2 does pretty much everything you’re expecting it to – providing a nostalgic trip down memory lane and some glossy escapism, peppered with eye-catching fashion montages, so many A-list cameos you’ll struggle to keep up (and I mean that genuinely, there were celebrity names in the closing credits I completely missed) and, believe it or not, even some unexpected twists and actual laughs along the way.

The characters we already know and love are brought up to the present day in ways that make sense for all of them, with Emily Blunt once again stealing the show as former-Runway-assistant-turned-fashion-exec Emily.

And while Emily Blunt is the MVP, a close second would be new addition Justin Theroux as an awkward tech billionaire with more than a whiff of Elon Musk. Emily and Justin are paired up for much of the film, and deliver most of its best comedy moments – outside of a cameo from a certain pop diva, who proves to be one of the few people in the Devil Wears Prada universe capable of giving Miranda Priestly a run for her money.

On the nostalgia-front, it goes without saying that The Devil Wears Prada 2 is packed full of references to the first film. These work best when they’re carefully placed as Easter eggs for fans to discover on their own or thrown away like one of Miranda Priestly’s icy putdowns.

Unfortunately, more often than not, these callbacks arrive with all the subtlety of an elbow to the face, with characters heavy-handedly explaining their jokes rather than letting them breathe, which can give the film the feeling of a Netflix original made for “second screening” rather than one of 2026’s biggest cinematic events.

Similarly, the film’s industrial strength product placement does prove to be a bit of a distraction, with Runway employees throwing back Diet Cokes and Starbucks drinks as big as their heads, while fashion and beauty brand names are obviously dropped with abandon.

There’s also a shoehorned-in love story that feels like a last-minute addition that was slotted in alongside the main storyline when someone remembered the original film is a romantic comedy, and the sequel had better sprinkle something of that nature in the sequel.

On the other hand, I can say as someone who’s spent more than a decade working in digital news, that The Devil Wears Prada 2’s overarching storyline about the general state of the media industry is done surprisingly well, with the themes about the importance of good journalism feeling especially prescient in these Trump-ian times we’re living in.

Real talk, it’s unlikely any of us will be quoting The Devil Wears Prada 2 with the abandon that lines from the first movie are still thrown around today, and while certain guest stars and set pieces do stand out, as a film, the sequel never really steps out of its predecessor’s shadow. But realistically, who was expecting it to?

Taking it for what it is, The Devil Wears Prada 2 does pretty much everything you’d hope it would. Regardless of how long it stays with you afterwards, there’s no denying that it’s great to see Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway back in character after all these years, and it certainly serves up some glossy escapism.

Just don’t be surprised if you find yourself with a sudden craving for a Diet Coke halfway through…

The Devil Wears Prada hits cinemas on Friday 1 May.