‘The Devil Wears Prada 2’ review: Heavier, solid sequel proves Miranda Priestly is still in vogue

It’s been 20 years and glossy magazines are dropping like flies. But I’ve gotta hand it to the Devil — she could’ve been a whole lot worse.

“The Devil Wears Prada 2,” the sequel to the 2006 comedy that’s not at all about Anna Wintour, is a good time, even if the high-pressure world of Vogue, er, Runway is no longer the epitome of New York luxury and glamour it was back in the aughts.

Remember when in the original movie, fearsome editrix Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) killed a photo shoot because she didn’t like the jackets, costing her publisher Irv Ravitz an eye-watering $300,000?

Well, the times they are a change-in’. When Miranda jets to Milan for Fashion Week in the followup, she’s forced to sit in — gird your loins! — coach.

Hardly a rehash, “Prada 2” is not about a dowdy assistant trying to stay alive on a cutthroat battlefield of couture while sparring with and learning from a demanding boss. It’s about the survival of an entire imperiled industry.

That’s heavy stuff. And director David Frankel’s “2,” while still shiny as a Tiffany ring, is definitely not the fizzy Bellini the first film was. It’s too long because there is a surprising amount of plot, and there’s as much talk of budget cuts, corporate restructuring and metrics as there is of Tom Ford and Versace.  

But, in picking a real-world issue and respecting the returning characters, No. 2 is likable and thankfully not the garish embarrassment that it could have so easily become. See: “And Just Like That…” Or, rather, don’t.

Two decades after being mercilessly tortured by Anna Wint… Miranda, Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) is exactly where we’d expect her to be: working as an investigative reporter for a little newspaper called the New York Vanguard.

For a minute, anyway. At a press awards ceremony, her entire table is laid off via text, and Andy takes to the podium to give a barnburner of a speech about the importance of journalism.

Miranda, meanwhile, is forcing a smile at the Met Gala — the theme is spring florals! Groundbreaking. — as she deals with the fallout from damaging revelations that a fashion brand Runway lauded uses sweatshop labor. 

Wanting to calm the situation with prestige, Irv Ravitz sees a video of Andy’s blowup and hires her to be Runway’s new features editor, which are two words I never thought I’d hear uttered in a movie.

Andy arrives at work beaming, expecting a heartwarming reunion with her old mentor.

Instead, she gets a frosty, “Who are you?”

Yes, it’s a new era, but the devil’s not sanding down her horns just yet.

So, Andy’s got to start from the ground up. She’s crammed into an office that’s practically a broom closet and tries to publish hard-hitting stories while getting hounded by Miranda to juice more web clicks.  

She also continues to deal with her old coworker Emily (Emily Blunt), only in a different capacity. The mean Brit is now a bigwig at Dior and is dating a billionaire named Benji Barnes (Justin Theroux), a Jeff Bezos type. He’s an awkward tech nerd and she’s worked tirelessly to clean him up to look good next to her.

Does that make Emily Lauren Sanchez, who just so happens to be a co-chair of this year’s Met Gala? Who am I to say?

Miranda, a role that earned Streep an Oscar nomination, is admittedly not the same fascinating enigma she once was. Adjusting to the future has been a challenge, and her uncertainty leaves the character a bit off-balance. HR has been on her case, and the evolving media landscape appears to be leaving her behind.

Streep is nonetheless as bitingly funny as ever. At one point she says a group of models look like “goats at a methadone clinic in New Jersey.” However, there’s no material here on the witty level of the “cerulean” speech. 

And the actress retains an easy chemistry with Hathaway and Blunt, who step back into their parts gracefully like no time has passed. Sometimes when actors who went on to become uber-famous return to an early role, it’s challenging to accept or even believe them. Not so of these two. 

Just because Runway’s fallen on hard times doesn’t mean the women are shopping at Target. They don a dizzying array of fabulous and extremely expensive clothes in the film, sometimes wearing multiple elaborate creations in a single scene.

The men? Meh. Stanley Tucci is here again as gay Runway vet Nigel, only not as delightfully snippy or snappy. He talks slow and meditatively like he’s teaching you how to make risotto. And BJ Novak plays Jay Ravitz, a sports-obsessed number-cruncher who inherits his dad’s publishing company and wants to gut the place. 

Kenneth Branagh, a fantastic actor, is perfectly fine as Miranda’s new husband Stuart, but as written the guy barely exists. If you told me Branagh played the lamp, I’d believe you.

And Andy gets an Australian love interest named Peter (Patrick Brammall), who serves no perceivable purpose other than to help her buy a new apartment. Although, I suppose some relationships have been built on less.

But actors with Y chromosomes have never been the main or even secondary event of “Prada.” Adrian Grenier’s Nate was one of the worst parts of the original. 

It’s all about the ladies. And Miranda, Andy and Emily are an immaculately dressed sight for sore eyes.

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