REVIEW If only Olsen twins' film ran faster than a New York minute

Mary-Kate and Ashley are talented in one thing -- marketing.
By MILAN PAURICH
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
Come back, Hilary Duff. All is forgiven.
After enduring "New York Minute," the new big-screen pairing of Olsen twins Ashley and Mary-Kate, I'm now prepared to take back all the nasty things I said about Duff while reviewing her 2003 trio of "Agent Cody Banks," "The Lizzie McGuire Movie" and "Cheaper by the Dozen." Next to the Olsens, Duff is Meryl Streep, Judi Dench and Julianne Moore combined. And mercifully, there's only one of her.
Of course, I don't really understand the whole Olsen twins phenomenon anyway. Never having watched a single episode of "Full House," the ABC sitcom that served as the baby moguls' career launching pad, I found the mini-industry that sprung up around them -- videos, record albums and books -- as vast and impenetrable a mystery as Stonehenge or the Loch Ness Monster. Clearly somebody has been buying up all that Olsen merchandise, but who? The same tweeners who turned Britney Spears into a "star"? Creepy old Humbert Humbert types with advanced Lolita complexes? Beats me.
It's directed by Dennie Gordon, whose previous foray into tween-dom (last year's "What a Girl Wants" with Amanda Bynes) was considerably more appealing. "Minute" surrounds the Olsens with a plethora of guest stars in a deliberate attempt to expand their, er, demographic. Or, maybe it's just to confuse unsuspecting grown-ups into thinking they're watching an actual movie instead of a no-frills vanity production disguised as a theatrical release.
Opposites
Playing (what else?) twins, Mary-Kate is punkish Roxy who dreams of rock stardom and thinks she's too cool for school. Her sibling is studious overachiever Jane (Ashley), an honor student with a scholarship to Oxford University on her brain. In one madcap day in Manhattan, these Long Island sisters who don't even particularly like each other will (a) patch up their differences, (b) find romance, and (c) make all their dreams come true. In other words, just like real life. Yeah, right.
Collecting paychecks here are the great Eugene Levy as an overzealous truant officer hot on Roxy's trail; Levy's fellow SCTV alum Andrea Martin (a senator caught in the middle of the slapstick shenanigans); and former Conan O'Brien sidekick Andy Richter (a DVD pirate searching for a computer chip that somehow managed to wind up in the girls' possession). As depressing as it is to see a bona fide comedy genius such as Levy squandering his talent on greasy kid's stuff, I was even more disheartened by the sight of charming Jared Padalecki (Dean from "Gilmore Girls") making his feature film debut in such pea-brained hokum.
No-talent twins
If Mary-Kate and Ashley have any talent at all -- besides a keen eye for marketing, that is -- none is visible on screen. But since I felt the same way after suffering through the twins' 1995 film "It Takes Two" (co-starring Kirstie Alley and, ugh!, Steve Guttenberg), I'm probably not the best judge of their thespian abilities.
Next to "New York Minute," "The Lizzie McGuire Movie, Part 2" doesn't sound like such a bad idea.
XWrite Milan Paurich at milanpaurich@aol.com.