New York Minute (2004) Movie Information:

New York Minute (2004) Directed by: Dennie Gordon New York Minute (2004) Written by: Emily Fox New York Minute (2004) Cast: Ashley Olsen, Mary-Kate Olsen, Eugene Levy, Andy Richter, Riley Smith, Jared Padalecki, Drew Pinsky, Darrell Hammond, Andrea Martin, Alannah Ong

New York Minute (2004) U.S. Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures New York Minute (2004) U.K. Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures

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New York Minute (2004) Synopsis:

Today is the biggest day in the super-organized life of uptight overachiever Jane Ryan. She's due to give a major speech at Columbia University for a competition to win a prestigious scholarship to Oxford University. Meanwhile, her rebellious sister Roxy is planning to ditch school and go backstage at a Simple Plan music video shoot in Manhattan, where she'll slip her demo tape to the band's A & R team. Despite having so little in common and so much emotional distance between them, the adversarial sisters reluctantly journey together to the Big Apple, but their plans go wildly awry when a mix-up involving Jane's all-important dayplanner lands them in the middle of a shady black market music piracy scheme. Sidetracked, sideswiped and hotly pursued from Chinatown to Harlem by whacked-out truancy officer and a wannabe gangster, Jane and Roxy reluctantly join forces and find unexpected romance with a charming Senator's son and a handsome bike messenger. If Jane doesn't recover her dayplanner--and the crucial speech inside it--she can kiss her college scholarship goodbye. If Lomax finally catches up with Roxy, she'll be drummed out of high school for good. Roxy and Jane seem to have everything going against them--but anything can change in a New York Minute!

New York Minute (2004) Movie Review:

This is the most important day of Jane’s (Ashley Olsen) life as she prepares to give a speech that could gain her a scholarship to Oxford University in England. It is also an important day for her twin sister Roxy (Mary-Kate Olsen) as she has an access-all-areas pass for the video shoot of her favourite punk rock band Simple Plan. This is her opportunity to get her band noticed by giving their demo to Simple Plan’s management team. All the pair has to do is negotiate New York City to get what they want but they’ll have to do something they haven’t done in a very long time, work together.

US teen sensations Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen make the jump from the small screen to the big screen but is that leap just a little to long? In this case yes.

There is no denying that the Olsen twins are a culture phenomenon as they have built an empire of clothes lines, make up, lunch boxes, DVDs, TV shows etc, etc, but New York Minute is just one step too far for the famous siblings. These are talented actresses with a certain amount of screen presence and charm but they really do need to find a much better vehicle than this to push them into movie stardom.

The problem is that the script is appalling. The twins go from one hapless situation to another, each more outrageous and far-fetched than the last. They find themselves on the run from the law, the state truant officer, the Chinese mob and a US senator after inadvertently getting their hands on a computer chip full of copied music, stealing a dog and skipping school. This is all played out with an element of farce that sees Mary-Kate and Ashley running around the more scenic parts of New York. Of course you can guess the ending as soon as the situation is spelled out for you and you just spend the rest of the time waiting for it to happen.

The cast do their best with script however. Mary-Kate and Ashley have been acting most of their lives and you can tell as they really do bounce off each other extremely well. It is almost effortless how the two girls interact and push the story along and it would be interesting to see if they could actually act if they ever got roles in separate movies. Eugene Levy is as good as ever as obsessed truant officer Max Lomax. Levy excels in these types of roles but you can’t help but ask yourself why he choose to be in a movie like this. Riley Smith and Jared Padalecki are fine as Mary-Kate and Ashley’s love interests but both of them look far too old for the twins (even though they are 18 now). The biggest shock is the appearance of Jack Osbourne in the movie. This will do nothing for his reputation in the slightest.

New York Minute is aimed squarely at 10-15 year-old girls but even they will find this movie hard going. With a lacklustre, unimaginative script and far too many cheesy messages riddled throughout it, there just isn’t enough to like here, even for the most hardened Mary-Kate and Ashley fans.

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New York Minute (2004) review written by: Jamie Kelwick