MOVIE REVIEW New Fonda, Lopez flick a monster disappointment

A poor script and little help from the supporting cast make this movie a dud.
By ROGER MOORE
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
"Monster-in-Law" is a screwball comedy with a few screws loose.
As insistent as a migraine, subtle as a sling-blade, it's pretty much what you'd expect if you put the guy who made "Legally Blonde" in charge of Jane Fonda's "comeback" and Jennifer Lopez's romantic comedy future -- a monstrous patchwork that only Reese Witherspoon could save.
Fonda and Lopez square off as an aging TV talk diva put out to pasture -- think Barbara Walters 20 years ago -- trying to scare off her socially inferior future daughter-in-law. And girlfriend and future-granny do manage a pretty good throw-down, once that brawl is set up.
But director Robert Luketic and first-time screenwriter Anya Kochoff waste over an hour getting to the title bout.
They show us the on-air meltdown Viola (Fonda) has when she learns she's being replaced by a younger "former weathergirl." They take us through a long, unfunny and ice-cold courtship between Lopez, a "temp" who answers phones in a clinic, walks dogs and waitresses for caterers, and the young doctor she loves.
The divas deliver -- sort of
HUGE mistake. Michael Vartan, playing the doctor in question, is the sum total of a few surface touches -- two-day stubble, a toothy grin and assorted poses. He has no presence, generates no heat with Lopez and is given nothing to do by the script. If he isn't a model, he ought to be. Soon.
But it's fun to see Lopez show up with her A-game, for once. She's invested in the part, a diva trying her darnedest to summon up the winsome and lovelorn girl who turns all dewy-eyed over Dr. Dull.
"What color are my eyes?" she says, testing him after he's professed his interest in asking her out. Nice line, nice test, and Lopez plays it beautifully, running through her whole repertoire of romantic longing in a flash.
But the fun really only begins when Viola decides that getting Charlie (Lopez) out of her son's life is her "project," her replacement for the high-rolling career she's just lost. The contest of wills is ugly, personal, and sometimes funny. Their toe-to-toe scenes work, though you have to wonder what mime school both women raided for their makeup.
A weak entourage
Wanda Sykes is the clich & eacute;d black "assistant" to Viola. She's not much of an actress, and she shows up without much of her edge. She's here to tell her boss what she really thinks, and blurt out such helpful witticisms as "I'll get the vodka."
Adam Scott makes no impression as Charlie's obligatory gay pal, given the obligatory gay-pal name "Remy." Broadway legend Elaine Stritch shows up as the mother-in-law's mother-in-law, too funny and too late, to tease us with the romp this could have been.
The class war that we're set up for never really develops, though Fonda seems game enough to play that card, and "Jenny from the Block" has made it her signature. Back to screenwriting school, for somebody.
With a dysfunctional script and no help from the supporting cast, it all falls on the two divas -- the multi-marriage Oscar-winner and the tarty tabloid princess -- to tote the load. They set off a few sparks in their confrontations, but not enough to bring this Frankenstein's "Monster" to life.