The Challenge

You have to hand it to Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. In making the transition from tyke-to-'tween stars, they're maturing much more gracefully than Britney Spears. This is, for what it's worth, the best yet of their produced-for-video features, a clever spoof of Survivor laced with sly, self-referential humor. In yet another variation on the Parent Trap scenario, the Olsens star as Shane and Lizzie, estranged siblings who are different as night and day. One is a "sprout-head" from California, the other a "type-A" personality from Washington, D.C. The producer of a fading reality-TV series schemes to reunite them, hoping to capture the flying sparks while watching the ratings climb. Of course, sisterhood wins out over the initial sibling rivalry as the girls face behind-the-scenes skullduggery and plots by jealous contestants. Mary-Kate and Ashley have blossomed into natural performers, and they handle their comedic, dramatic, and action scenes with aplomb. Longtime Olsen fans will get a kick out of the hilarious epilogue in which previous "movie boyfriends" from Passport to Paris, Holiday in the Sun, Getting There, and the TV series So Little Time, pop in to fight over the girls. Recommended. (K. Lee Benson)