‘The Devil Wears Prada 2’ Defends Beauty

he Devil Wears Prada 2—a sequel to the Academy Award-nominated original from twenty years ago—is a fun Hollywood spectacle, reuniting heavy hitters from the original cast (Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Stanley Tucci, and Emily Blunt) while adding tongue-in-cheek cameos from media figures like Kara Swisher and Jenna Bush Hager. Despite warnings from the otherwise legendary Armond White, who calls the movie a “rummage sale” of recycled decadence, mature, Catholic audiences primed for suspicion in the wake of Hollywood’s woke excesses and shallow propagandizing need not overthink it. Though the film occasionally stumbles into theological territory it plainly does not understand, the sequel to the 2006 blockbuster offers quippy, sharp dialogue; an escapist, larger-than-life engagement with its New York City setting; and a gripping corporate-takedown plot—complete with the death of a patriarchal titan, the fight over an elite media dynasty, and secret trips in black SUVs to billionaire compounds—reminiscent of HBO’s Succession.