This sequel should have remained "in the works" because what they made isn't good.
The wit is as sharp as a butter knife, the movie is about 30 minutes too long, the original characters are now bargain basement caricatures of themselves, and there's thinly disguised characters who are supposed to be the Bezos. Very thinly disguised.
Andy (Anne Hathaway in one of the five movies she's in this year) is even more fumbling and clueless than she was twenty years ago. They work so hard to make her the heart of the movie that it overshoots into cringe territory.
Miranda (Meryl Streep) tries to be as acerbic as the first time around but seems more tired. They give her some character development and juicy lines but it's nothing new.
Nigel (Stanley Tucci) is the standout of this one, probably again. He's the heads-down, don't make waves same as he was before but has more of a resigned feeling, as he should after twenty years doing the same thing.
Emily (Emily Blunt) is kind of sidelined here and tries to recapture the bickering from the first one. As with the rest she didn't hit the mark.
This time around the problem is that the magazine has been trying to move into the digital era and is suffering because no one has an attention span anymore. Then the stakes rise when the owner passes away and his son wants to take things into a fresh, even more digital era. The film makes it very obvious that Miranda is old-school and, well, old so therefore her ways are bad.
Andy teams up with Emily to save the magazine from being sold, only to be double crossed because Emily's not-Bezo boyfriend is going to buy it in a secret deal so Emily can be the editor in chief. Miranda figured it all out, Andy is stunned by the obvious betrayal. One nice bit of writing has Miranda talking at Andy about betrayal and it's not actually directed at her. It was Miranda telling her she knew who was going to take the hit and who was going to do it.
Andy is back because she lost her job and was hired to be the features editor. She dug the magazine out of a scandal and then continues to desperately seek Miranda's approval. This sets up more of the same from the first movie - bitchy and/or overlooked assistants, fashion snobbery, elitism, etc. only this time it's kinda tired. It's also the cliche of the writer/editor wanting to put real journalism into a fashion magazine.
She even goes so far as to snag a coveted interview with not-Bezo's first wife, who Miranda considers the golden ring. Not-Bezo's first wife gives the interview, saying that she's going to give all the money away, etc. This does not get Andy the approval she seeks either.
Anyway.
Miranda kind of gave up when things took the hard spin but the situation with the magazine being pulled out from under her gives her a second wind. She gives Andy a list of phone numbers to call to do .. something. Andy pulls it off but they have to leave right before Miranda gives the keynote speech at their new Milan venue. Miranda has Nigel do it, realizing that he'd been wanting to advance for a long time.
Not-Bezo and Emily are lunching with the owner's son, touching on the final details of the sale. The son gets a phone call, talks financial stuff, then says the entire media branch has been sold so the magazine has been sold too.
Andy and Miranda drive and fly off, ending with a helicopter landing .. on the lawn of not-Bezo's first wife's house. She bought the media branch, ensuring that Miranda (and Andy) get to stay at their beloved magazine.
As in the first one there's a big montage of fashion designers and models, along with the magazine's fashion show. Pink gets a cameo here because they need to find music for the show and Miranda uses Nigel to kind of strong arm her into performing. She gets a full song out during the fashion show.
That's really it. There's nothing that stands out for this and it takes the shine off the original movie's impact. They push too hard on how things have changed (Miranda has a dedicated HR person to tell her when she's being politically incorrect) and not at all on how characters have changed over two decades.
No comments:
Post a Comment