“The Devil Wears Prada 2” has a fair amount of fun and style while showing some surprisingly melancholic aspects. As things have surely changed a lot during last 20 years since “The Devil Wears Prada” (2006), the movie becomes a bit more serious than its predecessor as recognizing this considerable change in the world inhabited by its main character. However, it also feels like a redundant epilogue as being one or two steps below its predecessor, even though it is still entertaining to see a sort of homecoming among its four principal performers.

At the beginning, the movie quickly establishes the current status of Andrea “Andy” Sachs (Anne Hathaway). Since she quit working for Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) at an enormously famous fashion magazine named Runway around 20 years ago, Andrea has steadily established her journalism career, and now she is about to have one of the finest moments in her career, but, alas, she and several colleagues of hers suddenly found themselves unemployed as a part of the aggressive downsizing of their newspaper company right before that moment. Considering how this has often occurred in numerous major newspaper and magazine companies around the world during last several years, this moment surely comes closer to many audiences who have been well aware of this alarming decline of journalism industry.

As Andrea subsequently tries to find any job opportunity, there comes an unlikely offer. Her emotional public speech at that moment happened to draw the attention of the owner of Runway, and, what do you know, she soon finds herself getting employed as a new editor there. She is now going to work along with Miranda instead of working under her as before, and she is certainly delighted to meet her imperious mentor again, though Miranda seems barely moved while not recognizing Andrea that much.

Nevertheless, there is not much tension between Andrea and Miranda from the beginning, because we know too well that Miranda recognizes and cares about Andrea more than she can possibly admit on the surface. After all, she actually helped Andrea a bit start her journalism career despite being quite disappointed with Andrea’s eventual choice at that time, and Andrea remains grateful to Miranda as before.

And Miranda really needs some help from Andrea this time, because her magazine is facing a disastrous public relation problem due to a major article praising a well-known fashion industry company which turns out to profit a lot from oversea labor exploitation. Andrea subsequently writes a piece for public apology, and that seems to help the magazine recover from this messy public scandal, though Miranda remains not so impressed while being more occupied with the upcoming promotion promised by the owner of Runway.

Meanwhile, we meet two familiar figures: Nigel Kipling (Stanley Tucci) and Emily Charlton (Emily Blunt). Although he has suffered and endured a lot as working under Miranda for many years without receiving any recognition or appreciation at least, Nigel continues to stand by Miranda as her trustful right-hand guy, and he also remains kind and supportive to Andrea as before. In contrast, Emily left Runway some years ago, and now she works as a senior executive at Dior in addition to being engaged to a very wealthy suitor.

Leisurely rolling its main four characters along the story, the movie gradually shows seriousness as Miranda and her magazine face another unexpected big problem later in the story. Needless to say, Andrea is willing to do anything for saving Runway and helping her mentor, but the situation becomes a bit more complicated as her well-intentioned plan goes wrong later, though it is rather hard to believe that she is so naïve like that despite being your average seasoned journalist.

While it is relatively less fun than its predecessor, the movie wields its glamour and beauty as much as it can across the screen. We surely see a lot of gorgeous and colorful clothes throughout the film, and the mood becomes more lovely when Miranda and Andrea go to Milan, Italy for attending a big fashion show to be held there. At one point, they have a dinner with a small group of guests right in front of a certain famous work of art, and that reminds us more of the luxurious aspects of Miranda’s life and work, though, to our little amusement, she has to step back a bit in case of her travel budget (I will not deny that I chuckled a little as observing this silly but funny moment).

The four principal performers diligently carry the film on the whole. Meryl Streep, who was deservedly Oscar-nominated for the previous film, certainly brings a touch of class to her character as expected, and Anne Hathaway demonstrates that she still can be as charming and likable as she was in the previous film. In case of Stanley Tucci and Emily Blunt, both of them have each own moments to shine, and Tucci is particularly poignant when his character is finally asked to do something very important on behalf of his boss around the end of the story.

Overall, “The Devil Wears Prada 2”, which is directed David Frankel (He directed several comedy films such as “Marley & Me” (2008) after “The Devil Wears Prada”, by the way), thankfully did not bore me, but it is not as enjoyable as its predecessor. Mainly because I gave the previous film 3 stars out of 4, I gave the movie 2.5 stars, but you still want to watch it anyway if you enjoyed its predecessor, and you will probably have a fairly good time just like the audiences around me did during last evening.