Juwanna Mann

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Ray Conlogue

Here's a truly novel sports film: It actually has a script, decent acting, sympathetic characters. And it's fun.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

But even though, most of the time, you know exactly what will happen next -- you don't much mind. Nor do the many plot holes and improbabilities -- undermine its silly, raucous spirit.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Predictable to its very core, and in a funny way the predictability is part of the fun. The movie is in on the joke of its own recycling.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

Director Jesse Vaughan keeps the ball in play through the aw-shucks lessons in humility and generosity, but the teamwork is shoddy, the plays lack surprise and, finally, Juwanna Mann misses more than it hits.

TV Guide Steve Simels

Comic Tommy Davidson, in particular, is hilarious as gangsta rapper Puff Smokey Smoke, who falls for Juwanna and then, in a twist lifted directly from the queen of all drag farces, 1959's "Some Like It Hot," decides he still loves her after she's exposed as Jamal. After all, nobody's perfect.

USA Today Mike Clark

This isn't the worst movie Warner Bros. has brought out this summer (Scooby-Doo, boo on you), but for it to work, you have to accept the irredeemable stupidity of almost every character. Time better spent: a Shaquille O'Neal film festival on video.

Chicago Reader Ted Shen

The idea of transposing the story to the macho, greedy world of big-time sports is promising, but director Jesse Vaughan delivers only flat dialogue and predictable situations.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Excruciatingly flat comedy.

Boston Globe Janice Page

It is Kevin Pollak who steals what there is of a show as Jamal's passive-aggressive, pressure-cooked agent. His comedic timing, particularly given the thinness of the script, is the only genuinely impressive slam dunk this movie has to offer.

Portland Oregonian Jay Boyar

"Tootsie" meets "Hoop Dreams" in Juwanna Mann, and they don't get along. This basketball comedy turns out to be a total drag -- in both senses.

Chicago Tribune Robert K. Elder

It's tempting to call traveling on Juwanna Mann, except it never goes anywhere. This film fouls out.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

Bottom line: Juwanna Mann is a drag - in every sense of the word.

New York Post Jonathan Foreman

It's all so insincere, you can almost imagine the filmmakers rubbing their hands together at the prospect of ripping off the public.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

As anyone who has peered in on the actual WNBA for five minutes knows, professional women basketball players are as tough as men. That the film treats this as a joke isn't funny -- it's the height of lame condescension.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

A postseason basketball comedy that shoots and misses at a rate that would embarrass even the Los Angeles Clippers.

San Francisco Chronicle Carla Meyer

Women had to struggle for years to launch their own basketball league; it's a shame that the first movie to address their success is a drag comedy, and a lousy one at that.

New Times (L.A.) Robert Wilonsky

This limp gender-bender-baller from a first-time director and rookie screenwriter steals wholesale from that 1982's "Tootsie," forgetting only to retain a single laugh.

Los Angeles Times Gene Seymour

When the outtakes at the end don't make you laugh, what does that tell you about the movie that preceded them?

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

Relies on the most time-tested basic moves of farce for laughs that just don't come.

Variety Dennis Harvey

Bringing absolutely no fresh angles to a time-tested formula that's seemed particularly overworked of late.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

If this sounds like "Tootsie" with a ball, well, it is. Screenwriter Bradley Allenstein should be hauled up in writer's court for his shameless cribbing of that far superior comedy. Someone call a foul.

Austin Chronicle Russell Smith

This is one that, like a 1am rerun of a late-season Cavs-Grizzlies matchup, deserves to play out in darkness and obscurity.

LA Weekly Paul Malcolm

So what in this high-concept lame-a-thon makes screenwriter Bradley Allenstein think he can diss the Clippers?

Village Voice Laura Sinagra

This flat run at a hip-hop "Tootsie" is so poorly paced you could fit all of Pootie Tang in between its punchlines.

Miami Herald Charles Savage

A sad and rote exercise in milking a played-out idea -- a straight guy has to dress up in drag -- that shockingly manages to be even worse than its title would imply.