REVIEW: The Devil Wears Prada 2 is devilishly dull

The saving grace is that you will know whether you will like this in advance depending on whether or not you liked the first one. If the world of fashion sets your pulses racing, with its high stakes and misbehaviour, then The Devil Wears Prada 2 is most definitely for you, efficiently serving up much the same a second time, with most of the gang back again.

But if it’s not your thing, then the same question will hang over it that hung over the first: why on earth is anyone putting up with this ghastly, awful woman?

Of course, the fans will say that Meryl Streep’s Miranda Priestly is a thrilling, detailed, complex portrait a super-demanding woman in a pressure-cooker job at a failing fashion magazine in the toughest of times. The rest of us will simply see a horrid woman behaving horridly, stonily oozing her clever-clever bitchiness, ice-cold superiority and cruel and dismissive put-downs.

Great acting of course, but whether you want to spend time with Miranda is most definitely another matter. She’s awful and yet everyone kowtows, either developing their own Miranda act in response or nervously clinging on in a world they’d do better to leave. It’s not exactly bringing out the best in anyone.

In fairness, we do get to see slightly a different side to Miranda this time round. The big budgets have gone; the magazine market has slumped; the world has gone digital; she’s making mistakes; hostile take-over bids are like sharks in the water; and she’s vulnerable.

But the feeling of ‘So what?’ still lingers.

Andrea “Andy” Sachs, played by Anne Hathaway, and Miranda’s former top assistant Emily (Emily Blunt) are back, and the power games twist and turn between them. Will Emily get any nicer? Will Andy lose her basic decency? Do we really care?

In the background Nigel, Miranda’s second in command, played by Stanley Tucci, still lurks slightly sadly and rather pointlessly.

Maybe the film stirs itself a little in the final half hour.

But of course, it all comes down completely as to whether the world of fashion sparks any interest at all in you. It absolutely doesn’t in me. This is a tedious couple of hours you won’t get back.