I saw the first one this weekend for the first time and enjoyed it. The BF in the original is the villain because that grilled cheese he made was criminal.
Went and saw the sequel with the wife, and was disappointed. The only thing that didn't disappoint was Stanley Tucci. That dude crushed every scene he was in.
I don't get why Andrea/Nigel (or anyone that works at Runway) have the desire to protect Miranda and her legacy. Miranda demonstrates through out the whole story that she only cares about herself, and that she is cunning/resourceful enough to take care of herself. Miranda has no problems throwing loyal employees aside to further her business ambitions (Nigel told Andy when she asked how he got over the betrayal 20 yrs ago in the first film he responds with "which time?).
Miranda isn't a soft innocent wide eye child that needs protecting from the cruel world, she's a shark. Yet Andy has this drive to "save" Miranda from the vile MBAs that have come to gut the company. Despite the only nice thing Miranda ever did for Andy was write a passive aggressive recommendation letter, and then proceeded to forget who she was. Miranda is so self absorbed she has to be guided by Andy to see that her hard working, loyal, obedient worker Nigel can give the speech.
End of the day the writing seemed, for lack of a better term, lazy. The Lucy Liu/Justin Theroux characters (Sasha/Benji Barnes) being references to Jeff/MacKenzie Bezos was lazy. Why would Lucy Liu's character who said, in the brief on screen appearance, that she wants to give her money away and be charitable use her money/resources to buy a floundering, decaying magazine/print business? If the reason is because she loves and appreciates art & that fashion is art, the writers did a very poor job communicating that. It just seemed like a quick easy solution to the problem of Benji buying the magazine and ruining it.
The lazy wrap up of Andy & the Australian fight. The dude did nothing wrong except support her and she was a dick to him. Instead of acknowledging her mistake and growing she just chalks it up to "people are messed up, so let's be messed up together." It's just lazy.
I'm not a writer, but in my opinion none asked for, why not write a movie that explores the idea of fast fashion vs slow fashion? Miranda and the team at Runway are the old guard against fast fashion/social media influencers. Fast fashion is destroying the world with its exploiting of child labor, non sustainable manufacturing process, and waste but Miranda with the help of Andy & her incredible investigative reporting skills at Runway are exposing this evil fast fashion empire that doesn't care about the art of fashion but is concerned with cranking out a quick cheap buck. Miranda has to take on her old assistant Emily Blunt who has cast away her ideals on what fashion is about to build her own empire. Miranda with the help of Andy grows and realizes that she doesn't have to treat people as garbage and elevates Nigel like she does at the end of this movie to be head of Runway.
And if the writers wanted to keep the whole "women are smart/girl power, men are stupid" they could tie it up at the end that Emily was being manipulated by the evil billionaire Benji, but thanks to the good billionaire Sasha she renounces fast fashion empire and joins Runway again.
Anyway that's my TED talk. I should get back to work.
