Monster-in-Law (2005)

Monster-in-Law DVD 2005 w/ J. Fo. & J. Lo.

By sabu  Jun 28, 2006

Pros: J.Fo.'s (Jane Fonda's) return to film after a 14 year vacation playing her own real age was risky and sets her apart from many of her contemporary actors. She sole the show!

Cons: J. Lo.'s (Jennifer Lopez's) doesn't measure up at all to the acting ability of J.Fo. It's like cute screen twinky meets the real well studied and shere talent of a true Hollywood star. J.Lo., as an actress is diminished in the same show as J. Fo..

"[T]he juxtaposition of Fonda with Lopez, now a star of comparable stature is shrewd..." Sight and Sound - Samuel Wigley (08/01/2005); I'll not agree with Wigley's critique because the balance between one hot long-standing star and one hot relatively new one could is not of comparable stature: J. Fo. steals the show!

I'm a big time Jane Fonda (J.Fo.) fan, the young lady who had to find her own way out from beneath her father's (Henry Fonda) gigantic shadow at a time when Hollywood was the valley of the dolls and drenched in drugs and liquor. "It's a hoot to watch Fonda cut loose and mix it up with J.Lo....Knockabout comic is just the latest incarnation in Fonda's life so far. Let her rip." Rolling Stone - Peter Travers (05/19/2005), seems to agree with me.

Who would have guessed that Jane Fonda would play her own age as mother-in-law so comically, when her acting history is not especially known for sharp witted comedy? J.Fo. you're still hot to trot! "Monster-in-Law"
; is Jane Fonda's ever so successful return to the big screen after a 14-year, well deserved, vacation.

The story line begins when waitress Charlie (J.Lo.) is searching for a nice guy to marry. She wants him to share her own wide variety of interests. Keith (Michael Vartan) seems to be her ideal match. Up to this point the story line is dull, unless you consider J.Lo. cute enough to make the story line something that doesn't matter; all too typical boy-meets-girl, marry, and breed like different-gender rabbits in a locked cage. Wanting to marry Charlie, Keith proposes. All too predictably dull.

However, his legendary television journalist mother, Viola (Jane Fonda, J.Fo.), who has an on-air breakdown after being replaced by a much younger woman, enters Keith's mind as a nightmare. Since her career is apparently over, for Viola, her energy is spent making the sun rise and set in Keith. All of her eggs in one son of a basket case.

Of course, with such high falutin standards of excellence combined with histrionic outbursts, Viola becomes determined to prove to Keith that Charlie is not of his caliber. Enter bluntly truthful Ruby (Wanda Sykes), Viola's assistant. And what we've got is a hilarious cauldron brewing to drive Charlie nuts.

Viola and Ruby use every antic any dubious mother-in-law has schemed, but she sorely underestimates Charlie's fight to let go of Keith and their future together. m_d.md.m_d