New York Minute Review
by Susan Granger (ssg722 AT aol DOT com)May 7th, 2004
Susan Granger's review of "New York Minute" (Warner Bros.)
While you may not have heard of the Olsen twins, millions of prepubescent girls, collectively called tweens, follow their every move. They've have been in the limelight since they were nine months-old, appearing as wide-eyed, adorable Michele Tanner, on TV's "Full-House." Basically, the perky, precocious Olsens grew up on-camera. When that show went off the air, they did "Two of a Kind," plus 14 direct-to-video "Mary-Kate and Ashley Adventures," building a billion-dollar business empire. Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen are not identical twins but they look very much alike and to celebrate their 18th birthday on June 13th, they've made their first movie.
In this zany action-comedy, they play sisters, Jane and Roxanne Ryan from Long Island, who travel to Manhattan, where brainy Jane (Ashley) is to deliver a speech at Columbia University to qualify for a prestige scholarship at Oxford in England. Meanwhile, rebellious Roxy (Mary-Kate) wants to sneak backstage at an underground music video shoot to slip her demo tape to the band.
Writers Emily Fox, Adam Cooper and Bill Collage and director Dennie Gordon have them pursued by a truant officer (Eugene Levy) along with a DVD-pirate (Andy Richter), who wants a microchip the twins don't even know they have. They attract a Senator's son (Jared Padalecki) and a bicycle messenger (Riley Smith), along with cameos from Jack Osbourne and Bab Saget.
Totally lacking either the charm or wit of "30 Going on 30" and "Mean Girls," the zany, episodic madcap mayhem is obviously a vanity production by their company, Dualstar. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "New York Minute" is a frantic 4. As Ashley whines while slogging with Mary-Kate through a sewer: "There is no bright side!"
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
