'The Devil Wears Prada 2' is an often funny and occasionally insightful sequel

In retrospect, it seems crazy that Meryl Streep won her third Oscar for a terrible Margaret Thatcher biopic and not for playing fashionista office tyrant Miranda Priestly in “The Devil Wears Prada.” An astoundingly witty performance deserving of the oft-abused term “iconic,” Streep’s loving sendup of longtime Vogue magazine editor Anna Wintour remains a marvel of breath control and contempt. Most bad bosses are screamers. Miranda exhales her disdain in barely audible sighs. It’s a hilarious power move — making people lean in to hear themselves being insulted.

Watching “The Devil Wears Prada” again recently, I was taken aback by how much of a mid-aughts time capsule it is. From the opening K.T. Tunstall track, the movie is date-stamped with all sorts of passé, Dubya-era relics like fat jokes, flip phones and Adrian Grenier. What one gawks at most today is the luxurious lost world of print media, where magazine budgets soared into the heavens while ridiculously well-compensated writers and editors were allowed to lavish their attention on a single issue per month. Turns out 2006 was a very long time ago indeed.

An often very funny and occasionally insightful sequel, “The Devil Wears Prada 2” catches up with Miranda and the gang from Runway magazine in a media landscape that’s been obliterated by smartphones and social media. In the words of Stanley Tucci — returning as Streep’s exquisitely sassy right-hand man, Nigel — the days of shooting elaborate fashion spreads in exotic countries are over. Now he “creates content for people to scroll past whilst peeing.”

The fate of the magazine has fallen into the hands of a smarmy finance bro, played by Newton native B.J. Novak doing his patented corporate weasel routine. He’s brought in a fleet full of McKinsey consultants to cut costs and maximize shareholder profits. The new bosses expect Miranda Priestly to fly commercial. In coach. And she gets the middle seat.

Streep underplays all these indignities with aplomb. Especially upon the return of Anne Hathaway’s Andy Sachs. Miranda’s idealistic assistant grew up to be a crusading investigative reporter who was recently laid off via text message alongside all her colleagues during an award ceremony where they were being honored for their work. (The movie should really come with a trigger warning for media professionals. I heard a few gasps of empathy at the press screening.) Andy’s brought in for her “serious journalist” street cred as damage control optics after another one of Miranda’s unfortunate gaffes.

It seems the old gal hasn’t been adjusting well to today’s more sensitive cultural mores, and some of the best scenes in the sequel show off Streep’s sly consternation while trying to curtail her workplace behavior to contemporary HR standards. (They even make Miranda hang up her own coat instead of simply throwing it on an assistant’s desk.) Amid the feel-good, gang’s-all-here trappings of a sequel to a beloved comedy, the film flirts with provocative ideas about obsolescence and a culture in decline, where seemingly every institution is being gutted for the sake of the bottom line and the masses seem perfectly willing to accept “good enough” instead of excellence.

Which is slightly ironic, because “good enough” is a pretty apt description of “The Devil Wears Prada 2.” I’m not trying to damn with faint praise here, as one of the pleasures of the original was that it didn’t push very hard. The first film is mild in a manner that wears extremely well, putting together four characters we enjoy and generally staying out of their way. It’s an extremely easy movie to watch that’s become comfort viewing for many. I don’t think I know anyone who has seen “The Devil Wears Prada” who has only seen it once.

The sequel reunites screenwriter Aline Broch McKenna and director David Frankel. (Yes, like most studio pictures about female characters, “The Devil Wears Prada” was directed by a man.) While they occasionally succumb to the tiresome callbacks that make most comedy sequels a chore, for the most part they allow these characters to bounce off each other from fresh angles. I especially enjoyed the new power dynamics explored by Emily Blunt’s witheringly sarcastic former assistant, who finally has some leverage over the two women who made her life so miserable 20 years ago.

Less amusing is Justin Theroux as a Musk-y tech bro billionaire getting his revenge on the world by dating women who never would have given him the time of day in high school. I’m not sure what Patrick Brammall is doing here as a dashing real estate developer except for following the first film’s formula by giving Hathaway’s character a love interest who sucks. Kenneth Branagh is on hand as Miranda’s latest husband, seemingly just happy for the opportunity to stand next to Meryl Streep while wearing some dynamite scarves. The fashions in the film are predictably spectacular, with runway montages in Milan and plenty of chances for the clotheshorse stars to strut their stuff. Insider cameos abound, and this critic congratulated himself for spotting Marc Jacobs, Tina Brown and Donatella Versace, among others.

Much like the first film, “The Devil Wears Prada 2” steers clear of the obvious, more honest ending. For all her high-minded ideals, Hathaway’s Andy is obviously the second coming of Streep’s Miranda, and both movies walk right up to the brink of admitting these two are birds of a feather, before sheepishly backing away. I don’t think there’s any need for the filmmakers to reassure us that our chipper audience surrogate is somehow more righteous and morally grounded than her mentor. It’s honestly kind of a drag. I mean, you can put Anne Hathaway in a cerulean blue sweater, but she looks more comfortable in Chanel.

“The Devil Wears Prada 2” opens in theaters on Thursday, April 30.