I liked The Devil Wears Prada 2 well enough. I wasn’t blown away but felt moderately pleased…intrigued, placated. The last third brings it home. Great final shot.
Meryl Streep was 56 when she played Miranda Priestly the first time (2006), and while she looks quite good in the newbie…well, she looks fine. Her eyes are certainly more heavily mascara’ed than they were in ’06, and I think her perfectly styled white hair should have been worn a bit longer. I hate how aging people always seem to wear their hair shorter.
B.J. Novak‘s Vengeance (’22), which he wrote, directed and starred in, is one of the best films released this decade. And I loved his Harry J. Sonneborn character in John Lee Hancock‘s The Founder (’16). His Prada 2 character is Jay Ravitz, the smart-enough son of Runway publisher Irv Ravitz (Tibor Feldman), but I’d rather see him direct and write something ambitious again.
43 year-old Emily Blunt once again plays Emily Charlton, the sniffly, suffering Miranda assistant in the 2006 original, now a big Dior hotshot. Charlton was a somewhat marginal figure 20 years ago — in Prada 2 she’s still a supporting sidelight with a few zingers, but humming with unpleasant anxiety, tension and suspicion.
What’s happened to poor Justin Theroux, who plays Emily’s boyfriend, Benji Barnes? At age 55 his once-slender face has become heavier and his jet-black hair and beard have turned reddish brown, and his eyes seem decidedly smaller than they were 10 or 15 years ago. (Remember his hippy earthman character in 2011’s Wanderlust?)
I didn’t care for Patrick Brammall‘s Peter, a condo builder whom Anne Hathaway’s Andy likes (i.e., wants to be with). He’s just not hot enough for her, and if I was a woman or gay guy I wouldn’t even flirt with the idea of doing him. Brammall might have gotten away with it if he had lean, chiselled features, but his face is doughy and unshaven…nope. Seems like a nice-enough guy deep down, but that’s not enough.
Kenneth Branagh plays Stuart, Miranda’s agreeable husband…meh.
Lady Gaga‘s cameo performance is high voltage…a keeper. The second most noteworthy cameo is owned by Kara Swisher, who has a couple of chit-chat lines. Poor Tina Brown is barely glimpsed before the camera cuts away.
