Mixed to negative reviews are coming for “The Devil Wears Prada 2.”
IndieWire: C+
Not a surprise. Disney really hid this film from actual reviewers until the last minute, and spent tens of millions promoting it around the world. Meryl Streep is getting good notices, naturally. And it’s nice to see the cast reunited.But the movie has no purpose of its own, according to reviews.
Guy Lodge writes in Variety, comparing it to the original: “by almost any metric, a lesser movie: narratively, emotionally and cinematically flatter, buoyed by game performances that nonetheless steadfastly fail to surprise. And in almost every way that it falls short, it illustrates something that’s been taken from mainstream Hollywood moviemaking since 2006.”
Deadline.com, which likes everything, calls it “an underwhelming return.”
The Wrap is vicious: “’The Devil Wears Prada 2’”’ doesn’t have a coherent theme, so its vibes have nothing to stick to. It never makes the convincing argument for its own existence, other than saying the journalism business stinks right now, and that there’s no solution that doesn’t involve billionaires who are more likely to ruin the industry than save it. Maybe that’s true but it’s not much of a movie. At least the gang’s all here, and the gang’s still charming, but the gang would have been better off doing something else.”
David Rooney in THR: “I had complicated feelings about THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA 2. Fun to see Streep, Hathaway, Blunt & MVP Tucci back in these roles, but this is a flimsy story with diluted conflicts that strains for substance and mostly falls short.”
Disney deserves all this bad news, frankly. Their PR department has done everything to make enemies along the way. Absolutely nothing was done to curry good will — which could be considered refreshing.
This is yet another mis-handled 20th Century Fox release from the Mouse House. They’ve bungled all of them, most recently “Deliver Me from Nowhere,” which was a good film poorly presented to the audience.
Will this affect box office? Not the first weekend. There’s too much pent up interest thanks to all that expensive marketing. But beyond that, Prada may be nada.
Yikes!
updating…
