The Devil Wears Prada 2

Last night my sister and I went to see a Thursday preview of The Devil Wears Prada 2 and, as big fans of the original, we liked it but didn't love it.  Since leaving Runway magazine, Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) has become a respected and award-winning journalist but she is unceremoniously fired by text from the newspaper she works for when it folds.  Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) is having her own problems at Runway because she allowed an article praising a brand that uses sweatshop labor to be published.  The chairman, Irv Ravitz (Tibor Feldman), thinks that Andy will bring respectability back to the magazine and offers her the position of features editor.  She accepts because she now needs a job, much to Miranda's chagrin, but she finds things very different at Runway.  Nigel Kipling (Stanley Tucci) explains that Miranda has had to tone down her imperiousness to appease HR (in some hilarious scenes involving her new assistant played by Simone Ashley) as well as advertisers, including Emily Charlton (Emily Blunt) who now works at Dior, but she is surprised at Miranda's passive acceptance when Irv's son Jay (B.J. Novak) succeeds him as chairman and proposes new draconian cutbacks (including flying economy class to Italy).  However, Andy eventually inspires her to fight back when a tech billionaire (Justin Theroux) attempts to buy the magazine from Jay for nefarious reasons during Milan Fashion Week.  I really liked the commentary on the current state of journalism and the importance of keeping it alive because it makes the sequel relevant rather than mere fan service but, having said that, a Miranda resigned to the ever-changing media landscape for most of the runtime is not as much fun (I prefer the imperious Miranda).  That is not to say that there isn't a lot of fun to be had because it includes lots of buzzy cameos from fashion designers, models, and celebrities (my favorite was Lady Gaga), fabulous clothes, luxurious locations, and amusing call-backs to the original (a reference to using florals for spring made me laugh out loud).  While I do think that there are a lot of extraneous characters and subplots, I have to admit that I enjoyed seeing Streep, Hathaway, Blunt, and Tucci do what they do best and I liked their character development, especially the relationship between Miranda and Nigel.  This is good but not quite as good as the first movie.