The Olsen twins in the Big Apple

One minute, they’re these downy-soft, adorable moppets with iridescent blue eyes lofting dopey wisecracks on a family sitcom. A decade or so later, they’re a registered trademark, a mini-media conglomerate.

Be afraid. The Olsen twins are becoming more than merely ubiquitous.

They’re reaching for all-world omnipotence. Next thing you know, they’ll toss the coin at the Fiesta Bowl, hitch a ride to the International Space Station or appear on “Meet the Press,” asking each other questions on free trade with Central Asia.

I keep thinking that they should be stopped. I’m just not sure what it is they should be stopped from. What do the Olsen twins want with us?

For the time being, they seem content to grind out the kind of processed cheese to which 13-year-olds can feel good about bringing their parents.

Never mind that most 13-year-olds would much rather go to the movies on their own. Then again, if these adolescents must bring mom, dad and baby sis along, they can hustle them off to see “New York Minute” while they check out the darker action playing in the next auditorium.

And what will they miss? A coy, frantic attempt at screwball comedy, lightly seasoned and more than a little gummy. As with other efforts to duplicate a classic movie genre, “New York Minute” can only manage to simulate the framework of its forebears without bringing anything fresh to the process.

But then, making it new, as far as this kind of product goes, isn’t as important as keeping it safe. Aside from a few borderline titillations -- hey, guys, is Ashley wearing a slip in public? -- there’s nothing in “New York Minute” that can’t be seen (or hasn’t already been seen) in a family-hour sitcom episode.

The setup has Ashley playing overachieving Syosset high school senior Jane Ryan, who’s about to make an important, scholarship-clinching address at Columbia University. Mary-Kate is Roxy, Jane’s underachieving sister who’s been cutting classes to cut recordings with the neighborhood garage band.

Snarling and snapping all the way, they end up on the same Long Island Rail Road ride to the big city, only to somehow get in trouble with a video-piracy ring that’s dumped a microchip in Roxy’s bag. Soon they’re chased from Chinatown to Harlem by both a limo driver (Andy Richter) who speaks with a bogus Chinese accent and a truant officer (Eugene Levy) with Dirty Harry delusions.

The plot is an overly elaborate excuse for America’s Twins to change into skimpier outfits, swerve cars into stationary objects, flutter their eyelashes at bland hunks, get their hair done at a Harlem salon (where Mary Bond Davis gets to do her all-knowing Earth Mother shtick) and have a yelling match in Times Square that threatens to bring substantive emotion to the gratuitous silliness. Even at such moments, director Dennie Gordon, a veteran of series TV, seems to be flinging the cameras back and forth to sustain the illusion of constant movement.

Doesn’t fool you for a minute. Not even for a --? No, that’s just what the Olsen twins would want me to say. I’m no tool.

*

‘New York Minute’

MPAA rating: PG, for mild sensuality and thematic elements

Ashley Olsen...Jane Ryan

Mary-Kate Olsen...Roxy Ryan

Eugene Levy...Max Lomax

Andy Richter...Bennie Bang

A Dualstar Productions/Di Novi Pictures Production, released by Warner Bros. Director Dennie Gordon. Producers Denise Di Novi, Robert Thorne, Mary-Kate Olsen, Ashley Olsen. Executive producer Alison Greenspan. Screenplay by Emily Fox and Adam Cooper & Bill Collage, story by Fox. Cinematographer Greg Gardiner. Editor Michael Jablow, Roderick Davis. Costume designer Christopher Hargadon. Music George S. Clinton. Production designer Michael Carlin. Art director Peter Grundy. Set decorator Jaro Dick. Running time: 1 hour, 31 minutes.

In general release.