Marry the man and you marry his mother, or so the cliché goes. Pity poor Charlie (Jennifer Lopez) when she falls for spunky Doctor Kevin (Michael Vartan). His mother is one of TV’s most celebrated chat-show hosts, the manipulative über-bitch, Viola Fields (Jane Fonda). Fresh from a mental breakdown after the network replaced her with younger talent, Viola doesn’t take kindly to her only son’s fiancée. For a start, Charlie temps as a dog-walker. Intervention is necessary and Viola’s campaign is a thinly disguised war to severe the bond before wedding bells chime. She starts with humiliation and torture (by moving in) before descending to disfigurement (with poisonous peanuts).

Australian Robert Luketic (Legally Blonde) directs this fairly routine material with some skill, balancing Fonda’s deliciously camp performance against the gloriously dead-pan response of Wanda Sykes as Viola’s sassy, put-upon assistant. Against these two, Lopez, seldom dynamic, pales as the straight-girl fighting for her new life. The initial setup is flat but once Viola arrives, the script by first-time writer Anya Kochoff ignites with some of the most brutal, bitchy comedy in ages. Amid the hysteria she slips in some terrific lines including ‘Let’s go drink lunch’ and a personal favourite, ‘I think you dislocated my vagina!’ There’s nothing particularly revelatory here, but nor is there meant to be. Monster In Law is disposable comedy for quick consumption, and as such, succeeds.

// COLIN FRASER