Monster-in-Law

A young woman (Jennifer Lopez) goes with her new boyfriend (Michael Vartan) to meet his mother (Jane Fonda), a network-news diva who has recently lost her job and isn’t in the mood for any big surprises. Anya Kochoff’s script is excruciatingly predictable—if you’ve seen the trailer, you probably saw the saccharine ending coming halfway through it—with every moldy cliché in place: the smart-mouthed black sidekick (Wanda Sykes), the gay best friend (Adam Scott), etc. The humor quickly becomes ugly and irritating, and director Robert Luketic puts it across with the plodding regularity of a man beating a gong. Laughs are sparse, but Fonda (in her first movie in 15 years) soldiers gamely on, even as Luketic (lacking chivalry) insists on emphasizing her aging hands and the lines on her face.