Here's a sample scene from New York Minute: Our twin heroines have been chased onto a concert stage by a relentless truant agent. With nowhere else to turn, they dive into the crowd, which floats them off to safety. Then the truant officer dives in pursuit, but—get this—the crowd doesn't catch him, and he falls flat on his face! Ha! If this strikes you as fresh and brilliant comedy, then you are the target audience for this film, the Olsen twins' effort to expand their empire into mainstream cinema.
Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen play Roxy and Jane Ryan, a twin-sister odd couple. Jane's the uptight, responsible one, and Roxy's the rebellious party animal. But it doesn't really matter which one's which, because by the film's end, they both have found more in common, learned the true meaning of sisterhood, and bagged matching Calvin Klein-ad boyfriends. Of course, to get to the end, you have to endure some of the dopiest scenes imaginable. Some ideas are ripped off from better or equally bad screwball comedies; others are just inexplicably lame, such as when Jane overcomes a panic attack thanks to everyone in the room singing "The Itsy Bitsy Spider." Huh?
The Olsen twins come off as bland and clichéd, but it's the supporting cast who are truly unbearable. Whatever comic status Eugene Levy earned from the American Pie movies, he flushes down the toilet as Max Lomax, the truant officer. And Andy Richter's tragically unfunny secondary villain, Bennie Bang (a white guy with Chinese accent), had me wishing more than ever that he was still sitting beside Conan on Late Night. Coincidence after coincidence brings these characters together in the vastness of New York City until the final act, which relentlessly tacks on endings until each character has received every unlikely shred of happiness he or she could ever want.
Preteen girls who support every facet of the Mary-Kate and Ashley brand name will probably see this, and perhaps even like it. And the script includes several scenes in which Jane wears only a towel, or even less, to appeal to all the quasi-pedophiles counting down the seconds to the Olsens' 18th birthday (June 13). But if you're not a Mary-Kate and Ashley fan and are just looking for 90 minutes of laughs, steer clear of this one. I can't recommend any movie in which the funniest part is a walk-on by Bob Saget.