Twin piques

And now a warm welcome, please, for the Stepford teens. Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, the 18-year-old twin stars of

Since then, they have become, according to their own publicity, 'executive producer-stars of a wildly successful home video series with nearly 40 million units sold, as well as launching the mary-kateandashley brand, including a popular fashion and lifestyle products line, children's book collection and videogame franchise, which will collectively gross more than $1billion at retail this year'. Isn't that sweet - and so much more productive than a normal childhood?

It's humbling that they could find time not only to promote their own film, but actually to appear in it. Sadly for the marketing campaign, Mary-Kate had to break off to fit in a six-week stay in a rehab facility, but she is now, apparently, recovering from her anorexia.

New York Minute itself is just too, too cute. The twins play two suburban girls, one (Ashley) an ultra-straight, mini-Republican with a wardrobe of pastels, the other (Mary-Kate) a rock rebel with an untidy wardrobe and a lovable tendency to play truant from school. She is being pursued around Manhattan by an accidentprone truancy officer (Eugene Levy, woefully unfunny).

The twins are also being chased by a gang of Chinese criminals, since they have accidentally come into possession of a microchip needed by sinister Orientals bent on copyright piracy. Say what you will about the Olsen girls, they're super-loyal to corporate America.

While they're being pursued, the girls manage to keep meeting cute boys, who turn up coincidentally whenever required and provide instant adoration and transport.

The twins also take every conceivable opportunity to run around with little or no clothes on, in order to show off as much 'barely legal' flesh as possible without endangering a PG certificate. Isn't that adorable of them?

As if to counter mean-spirited accusations of sleaze, the twins learn a moving life lesson about how much they need each other. And Ashley's character incredibly wins a scholarship to Oxford University, which according to this movie is in London (so eager are the film-makers not to challenge their audience, they have obviously decided that the concept of 'England' is too complex to assimilate).

Have Ashley and Mary-Kate any talent? Well, they bear exactly the same relationship to acting as Tara Palmer-Tomkinson does to TV presenting. They share an enormous enthusiasm for pulling faces and wearing clothes that show off their extreme skinniness, and an iron determination to be centre-screen at all times.

I hated every moment of this deeply sinister exercise in child exploitation. Clearly this film is not aimed at me, but I suspect that even the audience for whom this tripe is being marketed as harmless fun may baulk at its money-grubbing cynicism. It makes Spiceworld: The Movie look like a work of shining creative integrity.

Junk food causes obesity. This kind of junk cinema is more likely to encourage eating disorders and rampant consumerism in teenage girls who really, really wish to become just like the Olsen girls: commodities.