How clever! Instead of calling the movie "Mother-in-Law," they used the word "Monster" instead! Get it? She's a monster! Isn't that how all spouses feel about their in-laws? Genius.
Riiiiiiiiight.
As soon as the opening credits rolled, I was chuckling to myself. I knew this was going to be a stinker. The movie started off slowly – it took nearly 20 minutes to get past the story set up and into the full conflict. For a movie like this, the audience doesn't need a build-up... bring on the funny.
Oddly, the film had it's moments. I actually found myself laughing out loud due to a joke, not due to how horrible it was (although I did that a few times, too). The best thing about this movie was the Monster's assistant, played by Wanda Sykes. The role was almost too sweet for Sykes. She could really use a more open role to go nuts with. A lot of her one-liners were shot with only her in the scene, which makes me think that they went back and filmed her saying those lines so they could add them in later. The film needed it.
The first big no-no this movie did was cast Jennifer Lopez. She can be the sweet, innocent girl that the role called for, but she didn't have the edge that was necessary for combating with Jane Fonda. Also, this was the first movie I've seen that really exposes J-Lo's large booty. In fact, there were several scenes where Nik and I thought she would sue New Line Cinema because they left them in the movie.
I knew this movie would be over the top silly, and it was. Fonda, while looking a bit aged and tattered, did a pretty decent job in her cruelty.
For as bad as I thought this film was, it was better than the 17% rating it's getting at Rotten Tomatoes. It's not a film that I wanted to see (I actually dreaded seeing it), but it marketed itself to the demographic it was going after. The girls in the audience laughed at all the right spots and picked up on when it was making fun of other love stories (Jerry Maguire's you complete me). And for a movie that somehow cost $40M to make, they've made $71M at the box-office so far... not too bad.
So the movie wasn't THAT bad, but it was still painful. And honestly, if you knock someone out into a bowl of tripe and leave them there over night, they're going to drown.
+ original post date: June 8, 2005 09:28 AM
+ categories: Bad Movie Night
comments0
(comments rss feed)
post a comment