The Olsen Twins first rose to prominence as the most nauseatingly cloying element of Full House, one of the most nauseatingly cloying saccharine bombs in TV history. The duo subsequently gained fame as a two-girl industry, pumping out cheap, enormously profitable direct-to-video movies and similar product at a Rainer Werner Fassbinder-like clip. Along the way, Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen evolved from disturbingly simian-like tots to long-limbed, doe-eyed gamines and unlikely underage sex symbols. Invoking teenagers' inalienable right to pointless rebellion and solipsistic self-determination, the almost-legal Olsen Twins no longer wish to be known as the Olsen Twins—and, consequently, will forever be known as The Olsen Twins.
The latest disposable product from Mary-Kate and Ashley Industries, New York Minute marks the twosome's attempt to break out of the lucrative-but-disreputable direct-to-video and kidsploitation ghettoes and establish their viability as movie stars. Their effort is hindered by harsh, unflattering lighting and a threadbare budget that feels like it could be reimbursed by one week of the twins' earnings, while still leaving plenty of cash for the inevitable nightmare descent into booze and pills.
Cynically crossbreeding Ferris Bueller's Day Off with Adventures In Babysitting, New York Minute casts the Olsens as polar opposites. One's an anal-retentive young Republican overachiever scheduled to give an important speech, while the other (it's not worth the time or energy necessary to tell them apart) is a hooky-prone troublemaker out to score some vital contacts at a video shoot for the band Simple Plan, whose credibility will no doubt skyrocket as a result of its prominent role in the film. En route to New York, the girls accidentally come into possession of a microchip sought by hoodlum Andy Richter, who trots out a Charlie Chan-style Chinese accent that's funnier in theory than in practice. They're also doggedly pursued by Eugene Levy, who ably fills the Jeffrey Jones role of overzealous truant officer.
Early on, director Dennie Gordon begins regularly fracturing the screen into quarters and split-screens, in a futile attempt to create the illusion that something interesting is happening. But she fails to give the movie the glossy, exuberant sheen it so desperately needs. New York Minute is an unabashedly pop confection, but it's flat where it should fizz, lumbering when it should skip. By the time the duo receives a crash course in being ghetto fabulous from sassy-yet-supportive black hairdressers, it seems safe to rule the Olsens' thin little crossover bid a failure.