Directed by David Frankel | Written by Aline Brosh McKenna, based on characters created by Lauren Weisberger | 119 min | ▲▲1/2 | In Cinemas

This legasequel, coming 20 years after the first — with the original creative team and four key performers all aboard — signals the kick-off of the blockbuster movie season. (Funny how for more than  decade the first week of May was ruled by a Marvel movie, not so much anymore.) The trailers running before Prada 2 certainly indicate full-on escapism is on the movie menu, with a slew of familiar franchises, remakes, and sequels coming soon, including The Mandalorian and Grogu,  the live-action Moana, Toy Story 5, and Practical Magic 2. 

And there’s plenty of reason to get excited about this one given the quality of its predecessor. The undeniable star power of the central quartet — Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, and Stanley Tucci — could carry any effort, and they do. This is a warm, low-stakes comedy without much in the way of actual laughs; the main draw are the frocks, the coats, and the talent.

We get a sloppy wet kiss of exposition off the top — so much clunky dialogue — and all the scenes from the trailer show up in the first 15 minutes, not necessarily a bad thing.

Andy Sachs (Hathaway) has carved out a career for herself as an investigative journalist working for a magazine called Vanguard, but just as she’s receiving an award she and all her colleagues are fired by text. At the same time, Runway, the Vogue-esque fashion magazine where she worked 20 years ago, is facing scandal — they promoted a new label that hid its sweatshop practices. Cue Andy landing a gig as features editor.

Things at Runway have changed. The Editor-in-Chief Miranda Priestly (Streep, incredible as always) is looking to step up to a more global role with the company that runs the mag. Her right hand man, Nigel (Tucci), is always faithful to the boss, but does he have ambitions beyond his station? Emily (Blunt) has moved on and now works for Dior, one of Runway‘s key advertisers, who will have demands now that the magazine’s reputation has been stained.

Circling the key foursome are a number of quality performers who find a moment or two to shine despite not having much to do: Lucy Liu, Kenneth Branagh, BJ Novak, and especially Justin Theroux — he’s never been my favourite actor, but he’s found a way to work out of those generic handsome dude roles by going big and broad, it’s what he does here as a tech billionaire.

The picture pays lip service to the changing media landscape in the United States, the challenges of journalism in the death throes of print, etc., though none of those plot details feel like anything but light background concerns. How seriously can we take Andy as a crusading newsperson when she interviews without a sound recorder? Deeply missed is the zingy, meme-worthy dialogue that made the original a minor classic.

The clunky script means performers have to elevate every scene with pure charm, which they manage. Hathaway, especially, turns on her movie-star sparkle to full beam brightness and lifts every scene she’s in — witness in comparison her curdled charisma in Mother Mary. Prada 2 sets up an incredibly dull Aussie love interest for her — no offence Patrick Brammall, but your character is absent character. Adrian Grenier may have played an asshole, but at least you could see why in the first movie she was attracted to him.

At the end of the day, both this film and its predecessor are all about wish fulfillment: Andy is drop-dead gorgeous but missing the glam that the fashion world applies to her. In exchange, her work ethic and inherent goodness changes the people around her and makes her dreams come true. That’s all fine, but one thing this picture hasn’t quite embraced is the lack of tolerance people today have for the toxic boss. Priestly is even more beastly in this version, fully the villain, and yet the compassion her victims have for her is inexplicable. Anyone who’s survived workplaces where an empowered narcissist tortured people around them might find precious few wishes fulfilled in a movie that celebrates the boss’s tiny heart growing barely a size.