Virtually all Hollywood gender-bending farces follow a direct creative line from Some Like It Hot. As Juwanna Mann shows, succeeding generations tend to produce pale, mugly clones in the same way that Michael Skakel is a Kennedy.
Still, the elements remain. The hero must hide out as a woman. He must fall in love with the woman who confides in him as a best-friend/confidante. He must be driven crazy with desire as they become pajama-party intimate (women always confide to each other while wearing sexy lingerie). And he must fend off the amorous intent of some horndog who buys his disguise all too well.
In the end, of course, he must be exposed and everybody must be very, very mad at him for this act of betrayal.
Juwanna Mann is that movie set in the National Basketball Association and WNBA (or the UBA and WUBA as they're called here for the usual legal reasons). It has the requisite faux-urban vibe and hotter-two-years-ago rap and R&B names and references (Ginuwine and L'il Kim in the cast, a joke with a D'Angelo reference in it). This is because the movie has sat on the shelf while money and distribution problems got sorted out.
In the meantime, even women's pro basketball has lost some of the heat it had when this movie was a good idea.
Still, despite its predictability, Juwanna Mann has some funny moments, entirely thanks to Miguel C. Nunez, who plays the title character with Chris Tucker-like shrillness and bursts of manic energy. In the men's league, he's Jamal Jeffries, a Dennis Rodman-esque bad boy who gets kicked out of the league when he calls out his coach and stands buck-naked in front of the crowd (something Rodman always threatened to do but never did).
In the women's league, he's Juwanna, a loose cannon who plays too much like a man (i.e., not a team player). And pretty much all the laughs are visual genderbending set pieces (Juwanna trying to keep her boobs from bouncing on the court, Juwanna facing the prospect of the team physical, a drunk Juwanna going to the men's room by force of habit and using the urinal while wearing a sexy cocktail dress).
And then there's the ongoing wrestling match with enraptured rapper Puff Smokey Smoke (Tommy Davidson), a little guy who's there mainly to be elbowed, kneed and punched into good behaviour for laughs by Juwanna, who's intent on preserving his/her honour.
From behind "the forbidden city" - as Seinfeld called the secret planet of women - he sees his dream-girl/teammate Michelle (Vivica Fox) being strung along by a sleazy R&B singer named Romeo (rapper Ginuwine) and learns a thing or two about teamwork and respecting women.
This of course leads to an "I've changed" speech and a rush to the Mighty Duck-ish happy ending that suggests director Vaughn knew he was running out of money and film stock.
(This film is rated PG)
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