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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
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66
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79
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64
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69
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You, the Living
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Monster-in-Law

Generally unfavorable reviews
Based on 38 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 43 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Comedy | Romance
Written by: Anya Kochoff
Directed by: Robert Luketic
Release Date:
Theatrical: May 13, 2005
DVD: August 30, 2005
Running Time: 102 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for sex references and language
Starring Jennifer Lopez, Jane Fonda, Michael Vartan, Wanda Sykes, Adam Scott, Annie Parisse, Monet Mazur, Will Arnett, and Elaine Stritch
After years of looking for Mr. Right, Charlotte 'Charlie' Cantilini (Lopez) finally finds the man of her dreams (Vartan) only to discover that his mother (Fonda) is the woman of her nightmares. (New Line Cinema)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: 21 Legally Blonde The Ugly Truth Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Rolling Stone Peter Travers
It's a hoot to watch Fonda cut loose and mix it up with J. Lo, even when the laughs turn mean-spirited.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
A generational spectacle that's fun to witness.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
Isn't a particularly good movie if what interests you is the art of film -- cinematography, editing, screenwriting, staging, little things like that. But if you're chiefly interested in turning off the upstairs lights and relaxing with a few laughs, you could do a lot worse.
Read Full Review >Premiere Peter Debruge
Imagine what someone like Danny DeVito might have done with the material, taking it in that darker "War of the Roses" direction instead of languishing in this sunny, not-nearly-sinister-enough "Legally Blonde" territory.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Wesley Morris
By Hollywood standards, a movie carried with such gusto by a 67-year-old woman has to be considered a miracle. And I'm not sorry to say I enjoyed watching her do it.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Jessica Winter
"Legally Blonde" director Robert Luketic bumbles along with typically clumsy blocking and framing, and the misogyny inherent in the three-ring spectacle of bitch slaps, barbiturate covert ops, and wedding plan hysteria does rankle.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
It would take the dark wit of a Billy Wilder or a Coen brother--or at least a Neil Simon--to put across this kind of material.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
The movie briefly suggests Viola is an incestuous psychotic.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Ella Taylor
This is a gay men's movie whose primary function is to doll Fonda up like a drag queen and let her rip.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
As for Monster-in-Law, it's tripe on a plate.
Read Full Review >Empire Angie Errigo
A note to Fonda: even thin, fabulous 67-year-olds shouldn't wear strapless gowns. It's scary.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano
All I could think about while watching Jennifer Lopez prance through Monster-in-Law was how cool and poised she was in "Out of Sight."
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
Fonda and Sykes are made for each other, and their incessant bickering and arguing are about the only things that give Monster-in-Law any life.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
Doesn't make the movie worth watching -- even if you're monstrously bored.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
Fonda's performance is a perfect storm of histrionics, and she leaves nothing and no one standing.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
Add them up and the sum has a certain mathematical inevitability: Really annoying characters, really annoying movie.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
Monster-in-Law, where Bridezilla meets Godzilla, is a comedy so anemic, so toxic, that even Dracula wouldn't bite.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
Monster-in-Law is appalling misfire of a comedy - a motion picture that takes a situation ripe for the blackest vein of satire and reduces it to a puerile and edgeless pile of goo
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Bill Gallo
Billed as a comedy, this low-wattage sitcom is both ill-tempered and mean-spirited.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Stephen Hunter
So tame and limp, it may actually give mothers-in-law a good name.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
To boost this movie's rating to "worth seeing" would make me feel like a publicist or simply a dope.
Read Full Review >Slate David Edelstein
A depressing comeback for Jane Fonda, but it's still nice to see her in movies again, and in something that isn't dripping with self-actualizing virtue like her last projects.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
How much better this would have been had someone like Brian De Palma stepped behind the camera.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
This vapid, mean-spirited comedy is Lopez's show, and though she is utterly unconvincing as a paragon of down-to-earth virtues, the last laugh was hers from the outset.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Monster-in-Law fails the Gene Siskel Test: "Is this film more interesting than a documentary of the same actors having lunch?"
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
Jane Fonda coming back to the screen after a decade-and-a-half absence in Monster-in-Law is like Brando returning from the dead to star in a Police Academy movie.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
The comedy is shamelessly stupid and flagrantly vulgar by turns.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Stephen Holden
A shrunken, cowardly movie in deep denial of its true nature, which is far uglier than it is ever willing to admit.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
A deeply dispiriting movie, not just because it is grindingly bad but because Jane Fonda actually chose this for her comeback after a 15-year absence from the screen. But it's worse than that. Fonda, one of the best actors of her generation, is downright awful in a role she could have -- and probably should have -- sleepwalked through.
Read Full Review >The New Yorker David Denby
The self-confident fatuity and condescension of the movie is offensive.
Read Full Review >The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann
Fonda believed in acting. She doesn't seem to believe in it anymore. Her performance in this film is a collection of reactions, vocal whoops, and pouncings that we have seen often before in lesser actors.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
The movie itself is grotesque, and may drive you nuts as it makes you laugh, mostly at the stupidity of the thing.
The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin
It's not hard to imagine the militant Jane Fonda of 1972 angrily denouncing Monster-In-Law as insulting Hollywood claptrap trafficking in regressive, reactionary, blatantly sexist gender codes. And she'd be right.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 5.0 (out of 10) based on 43 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Angelica G. gave it a10:
It couldn't have been any better...now the real question is...is there going to be a part 2 to this movie?
Glenn M. gave it a0:
An absolute atrocity, this is the worst I have ever seen by a long shot, who could possibly say Jane Fonda was good, the most annoying acting Ive ever seen. Wow I am still stunned it was pitiful.
Crow Robot gave it a0:
Gosh, this was a really bad movie. This is a new low for J-Lo, and that's saying something. The gags run from mildly annoying to downright life-threatening. Notice 'funny' was no where in there. The plot is especially thin and uninvolving, even for this kind of movie. I found my attention wandering while I watched it, which I don't think has ever happened to me before while I watched a movie. Wanda Sykes puts in a pitiable performance as the comic relief. Her Greyhound commercials were funnier. Every actor and actress in this has done much better work. Avoid this film at all costs.
Barb M. gave it a7:
Loved it. Don't look for perfection. Just a fun movie, that doesn't get too absurd. Almost tho!
Cheriff L. gave it an8:
Pros: Hilarious, not very mean spirited, great acting. Cons: predictbale, too many "romantic-comedy" cliches. Overview: a great movie, not worthy for any awards, but its a fun watch.
Greg gave it a5:
This movie was sort of fun, but I say that reservedly. It was okay but was not up to the potential of Ms. Fonda nor Ms. Lopez. I watched this movie to completion but could not recommend it to my co-workers on Monday morning.
Susan M. gave it a4:
Great acting by Fonda, Lopez and the very hot Michael Vartan but that doesn't stop the story from totally sucking!!! I thought it was poorly written and strung together, a total cheesy let down and not at all heartwarming.
