MONSTER-IN-LAW

title: MONSTER-IN-LAW

year: 2005

cast: Jane Fonda, Jennifer Lopez, Michael Vartan

rating: *1/2

Most blame Jennifer Lopez and her big butt (which she makes fun of here) for this movie not being good, but it's Jane Fonda, who simply doesn't have the chops to play a love-to-hate character. Jane has always amazed me how, in every film, she delivers each line perfectly, has the moves down just right, seems to really know how to perform but without being ENTIRELY lost in character (like a fish half out of water). And being completely in-character's what was really needed here, and just doesn't happen. Fonda is the mother of a dapper, really skinny, permanent-five-o-clock-shadowed guy (Michael Vartan) who Lopez is about to marry, and tries to keep that from happening by faking insanity and thus driving Lopez away. But there's nothing to make us thirst for Lopez and hubby to be punished, much like, for example, in watching FATAL ATTRACTION, the audience gets thoroughly addicted to Glenn Close making Michael Douglas and Anne Archer's life hell. I realize this is a comedy and that isn't... but it's the same template - and there's simply not enough reasons for Fonda's "monster" to gulp up her victim - or, more importantly, for the audience to enjoy it. Both Fonda and Lopez, as loggerheads, have zero chemistry. And as for husband Michael Vartan... dude, EAT SOMETHING!