Monster-in-Law
New Line Cinema | Release Date: May 13, 2005 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
31
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 38 Critic Reviews
Positive:
4
Mixed:
11
Negative:
23
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
A generational spectacle that's fun to witness. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter 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
67
Portland OregonianShawn 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
63
New York PostLou Lumenick
Fonda is a hoot and a half. Read full review
50
PremierePeter 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
50
Boston GlobeWesley 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
50
Village VoiceJessica 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
50
L.A. WeeklyElla 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
50
Chicago TribuneMichael 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
50
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
The movie briefly suggests Viola is an incestuous psychotic. Read full review
42
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
As for Monster-in-Law, it's tripe on a plate. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesCarina 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
40
Washington PostMichael O'Sullivan
Ultimately one flat-footed beast. Read full review
40
SalonStephanie 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
40
EmpireAngie Errigo
A note to Fonda: even thin, fabulous 67-year-olds shouldn't wear strapless gowns. It's scary. Read full review
38
USA TodayClaudia Puig
Doesn't make the movie worth watching -- even if you're monstrously bored. Read full review
38
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
38
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
Fonda's performance is a perfect storm of histrionics, and she leaves nothing and no one standing. Read full review
38
ReelViewsJames 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
38
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
A fairly tedious, stupid picture. Read full review
38
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
Monster-in-Law, where Bridezilla meets Godzilla, is a comedy so anemic, so toxic, that even Dracula wouldn't bite. Read full review
30
TV Guide MagazineMaitland 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
30
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
To boost this movie's rating to "worth seeing" would make me feel like a publicist or simply a dope. Read full review
30
SlateDavid 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
30
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
How much better this would have been had someone like Brian De Palma stepped behind the camera. Read full review
30
Washington PostStephen Hunter
So tame and limp, it may actually give mothers-in-law a good name. Read full review
30
VarietyTodd McCarthy
Shrill, undermotivated, feature-length catfight. Read full review
30
Dallas ObserverBill Gallo
Billed as a comedy, this low-wattage sitcom is both ill-tempered and mean-spirited. Read full review
25
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
It's incorrigibly unfunny. Read full review
25
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger 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
25
Baltimore SunMichael 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
25
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
The comedy is shamelessly stupid and flagrantly vulgar by turns. Read full review
20
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
The movie itself is grotesque, and may drive you nuts as it makes you laugh, mostly at the stupidity of the thing.
20
The New RepublicStanley 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
20
The Hollywood ReporterKirk 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
20
The New YorkerDavid Denby
The self-confident fatuity and condescension of the movie is offensive. Read full review
20
The New York TimesStephen 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
0
The A.V. ClubNathan 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
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