The Movie Guru: “The Devil Wears Prada 2” fantastic, while “Apex” half great

The Devil Wears Prada 2 (in theaters)

I love being pleasantly surprised.

When I first heard about “The Devil Wears Prada 2,” I didn’t have high hopes. Hollywood has a terrible habit of churning out mediocre sequels to beloved movies for a quick buck, and I assumed this would be more of the same. Since the first movie ended with Andy (Anne Hathaway) triumphantly walking away from the fashion magazine, how could they ever justify her coming back?

Thankfully, I was wrong. “The Devil Wears Prada 2” is an excellent movie, telling a timely, interesting story that matures all the characters in exactly the right way. It’s a love story to an industry, to growing up and growing old, and deciding what we take from our past as we figure out how to move forward. It’s the rare sequel that actually builds on the original movie instead of invalidating it, and the main performances are all fantastic. It’s a rarity in Hollywood — a sequel that was worth making.

After a long, award-winning career in journalism, Andy gets laid off from her paper along with her coworkers. A scandal at Runway magazine leads to them hiring her as their new features editor. She and Miranda (Meryl Streep) have to figure out how to work together and maybe even keep Runway alive.

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If you loved “The Devil Wears Prada,” you’ll enjoy the sequel. If you liked it fine but thought it was mostly the cast that made it be so popular, you’ll enjoy the sequel. If you barely remember the original, you’ll probably still enjoy the sequel.

Grade: Three and a half stars

Apex (Netflix)

“Apex” is better at being a survival movie than it is a thriller.

Charlize Theron shines, doing all her own stunts and adding far more character nuance than the script allows. The scenery is beautiful and mostly not CGI, giving a powerful realism to the action scenes and survival elements of the movie. Director Baltasar Kormákur, who also directed “Everest” and “The Deep,” knows how to get the most of every moment featuring one woman’s battle against nature. The scenes of Theron climbing alone make the experience worth it.

Unfortunately, the thriller aspects of the movie aren’t nearly as effective. Theron is a fantastic action lead, so much so that Taron Edgerton simply isn’t convincing as a real threat. Edgerton tries his hardest with an underwritten character, but he can’t overcome what feels like a fundamental casting flaw. The movie tries to compensate by adding in an unnecessary gore element, one that does absolutely nothing to add to the movie’s grittiness.

It also distracts from the deeper elements Theron works to incorporate into her character — is she battling her grief, or getting lost in it? It’s not necessary for any version of the movie, but it gives the survival element real resonance.

The movie features Theron as a climber who experiences a tragedy in the opening scenes. Trying to process, she goes climbing and kayaking in the remote forest and runs into a serial killer who hunts humans to eat them. If she wants to survive, she has to fight against both nature and her enemy.

Overall, the battle with nature is by far the most interesting to watch.

Rating: Two and a half stars