By Dean Goodman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Walt Disney Co.'s "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl," a high-seas extravaganza starring Johnny Depp (news), sailed to the top of the North American box office on Sunday.

The movie, based on a Disneyland attraction, sold about $46.4 million worth of tickets for the Friday-to-Sunday period, Disney said. Including sales since it opened on Wednesday, the movie's booty stands at $70.4 million.

The movie was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, who is expected to own the No. 1 slot next weekend as well, albeit with a different film, the violent crime drama "Bad Boys II."

Industry observers said "Pirates of the Caribbean" cost between $120 million and $140 million to make. Disney domestic distribution president Chuck Viane said the film benefited from an original story, good reviews and positive word of mouth.

Overall sales for the top 12 films totaled $136 million, according to box office tracking firm Exhibitor Relations. The tally represents a 3.4 percent increase on the year-ago period, and a 7.3 percent jump from last weekend. The lucrative summer season has been more notable for its flops ("The Hulk," "Charlie's Angels," "Hollywood Homicide") than hits ("Finding Nemo," "Bruce Almighty").

"TERMINATOR" TUMBLES

Last week's champion, Arnold Schwarzenegger (news)'s $175 million-budgeted "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines," fell two places to No. 3 in its second weekend with $19.6 million. Its 55 percent slide was one of the steepest in the top 10. With $110.5 million banked so far, distributor Warner Bros. forecast it would reach $150 million. The previous movie in the sci-fi trilogy, "Terminator 2: Judgment Day," grossed $205 million in 1991. Warner Bros. is a unit of AOL Time Warner Inc .

At least, "Terminator 3" will do better than "The Hulk" and "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle," which are projected to end up with about $130 million and $100 million, respectively.

Universal Pictures' $150 million comic-book action drama "The Hulk," fell four places to No. 9 in its fourth weekend with $3.7 million, also down 55 percent. Its total stands at $124.7 million. Universal is a unit of Vivendi Universal .

Columbia Pictures' $130 million "Charlie's Angels" sequel fell three places to No. 6 with $7.3 million in its third weekend, down 48 percent. Its total stands at $81.7 million. The first film grossed $125 million in 2000. Columbia is a unit of Sony Corp (NYSE:SNE - news) (news - web sites) .

The top 10 contained one other new entry. "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen," starring Sean Connery (news) in a period crime drama based on a comic book series, opened at No. 2 with $23.3 million. The Twentieth Century Fox film, budgeted in the upper $70 million range, exceeded the expectations of executives at the News Corp. -owned studio.

Rounding out the top five were the Reese Witherspoon (news) comedy "Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde" at No. 4 with $12 million in its second weekend, followed by the animated hit "Finding Nemo" with $8.2 million in its seventh.

"Blonde," released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., has earned $62.9 million so far; its 2001 predecessor finished with $97 million. The total for the Disney-distributed "Nemo" rose to $290.8 million, making it the biggest movie so far in 2003.

1. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl .......... $46,630,690

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $70,625,971

2. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen .......... $23,075,892

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $23,075,892

3. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines .......... $19,477,207

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $110,313,912

4. Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde .......... $12,030,319

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $62,897,554

5. Finding Nemo .......... $8,465,110

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $291,068,455

6. Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle .......... $7,145,900

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $81,533,742

7. Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas .......... $4,310,834

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $18,804,444

8. 28 Days Later .......... $4,249,700

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $28,448,989

9. The Hulk .......... $3,670,035

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $124,669,950

10. The Italian Job .......... $2,736,905

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $88,833,887

John L.: Ahoy there me mateys. After a very long dry spell, a pirate movie has opened in the top spot at the box office. It looks like Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl might be the sleeper blockbuster of the Summer. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen tries to glom off the whole X-Men vibe and may not have really done it successfully. Full reviews to follow.

Yo ho ho, and a bottle of rum drunk on a deadman's chest Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl is probably the best action adventure movie of the year. It does practically everything right with the characters, action, story, and special effects. The plot concerns itself with two quests. One is the quest of Barbossa(Geoffrey Rush) to end the curse of himself and his men of the Black Pearl. You see, their greed at acquiring gold not belonging to them has turned them and Barbossa's pet monkey into the living dead by the light of the moon. They need one more piece of gold to help end the curse and the fetching Miss Elizabeth (Keira Knightley) has it. She has it because as a young girl she herself stole it from a young Will Turner who grows up and becomes the actor Orlando Bloom. A relationship grows between the two that is not consummated over the years. Mr. Turner likes Elizabeth, but her upper class status keeps them apart. He is but a lowly blacksmith and her father is a Governor (Jonathan Pryce). Barbossa gets a hold of Miss E, but due to her own witty ways, he realizes she is not the one he needs to end the curse. Also, since Elizabeth has gone missing, Will needs some help to get her back, and that help comes in the form of rogue pirate, Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp). Once all this is established its off to the races as all the players have their own motivations for getting what they want and desire. Depp and Rush are superb as their characters. Depp is an amazing actor who always goes all the way to make each person he portrays in movies to be different from the last. His Jack Sparrrow is written to steal the movie and Depp does just that. You sit up at attention everytime hear appears to see and hear what he will do next. Sparrow seems to be continuously drunk on rum throughout the entire picture, but is still able to be coherent enough to get out of many a precarious jam. Geoffrey Rush is another actor who takes chances and doesn't seem on the surface to be one's first choice to play a hard living angry pirate who is willing to shiver more than just your timbers. He gets into the role and gives it his all, even going as far as giving the classic "arrgg" pirate grunt. His Barbossa is just as charismatic as Sparrow in my opinion and it makes you root for both even though they are on opposite sides of the good and evil sign. Well, Sparrow has good in him that comes out every once in a while since he really is a bad boy. Orlando Bloom is the straight man for the festivities and does a good job as the baby face hero out to find his true love. His responsibilities have increased here from his sidekick role in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy and he is up for the challenge. Will Turner threatens to come off as very boring, but Bloom is able to make him a hero you root for. The damsel in distress is not like it used to be. Women never got to fight back in the old days of movies. They would be kidnapped and have to wait patiently until their prince charming came and rescued them. Women's lib has pretty much ended those days. Woe it be to any villain who decides to go after a woman in a suffocating corset in the movies nowadays. They will fight back to the end. Keira Knightley is an up and coming starlet I see big things for in her future. She is very fun to watch here and shows a personality that is sometimes not given time to develop. Knightley works the best with Rush in their scenes together as she tries to confuse and trick him. It would have been cool if a romantic angle could have been played between the two, but that was not to be as there are two other guys after her. Actually, she has some great moments with Depp when they end up together causing you to think that she might just go for the bad boy instead of the good hearted blacksmith. I would have to say her weakest moments are with Bloom as that relationship is just supposed to be a given and is not really developed beyond what one would expect. It has too much of the standard predictability that can bore and audience. If I had my druthers, Miss Elizabeth and Barbossa would have gotten together at the end. The story and characters are fine, but people come to see a pirate movie for the action. And the action is good and well choreographed without being over the top with crazy wire work that is all the rage. What has to be noted is the special effects on the Black Pearl crew when they walk into moonlight. I have never seen moonlight this bright before, but it was necessary to show what horrors greed can bring those who seek it. Skeleton battles have been around in movies for decades. The classic one will always be the skeleton attack at the end of "Jason and the Argonauts" which was created by the magic of Ray Harryhausen. Sam Raimi's "Army of Darkness" had a good skeleton battle as well. But, the best might have to be what was done here in POTC:TCOTBP. These are the most realistic looking skeleton warriors I have ever seen on film and their movements are done quite well. A combination of animation and motion capture must have been used to get the look done so well. The best part is when someone battles a Black Pearl pirate by the light of the moon, you see them switch from human looking to skeletal instantly. It is amazing to watch and the final sword fight is one of the best fight scenes of the year. MTV Movie Award guys take note. Pirates of the Caribbean is based on the Disneyland/Disneyworld ride and there are moments in the film that pay homage to it. One does not have to go to Anaheim or Orlando to understand or enjoy this live action cinematic thrill ride. Go see it. This is what summer movies are all about. Final Review: 4 stars out of 5; 8 1/2 out of 10; A; thumbs up.

Comic book movies are the new westerns. It seems they are finding any old comic book and developing a live action film around it. Over the years, comic book films have been more miss than hit. You can still count on one hand the really really good ones like Superman, Spiderman, and X-Men. This new one, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is all premise without being executed in a way that will excite people to see adventures continue or even to search out the Alan Moore comic book the movie is based upon. It is 1899 and the world is at the cusp of crossing over into a new century that will change everything. There are certain people that see that the world is headed for changes that must be controlled. That control some believe should be done by them. A World War is coming. No one in 1899 is sure when, but they know that within 10 or 20 years, the gates of hell will open up and evil will make its strongest play. In this time of uncertainty, there is a need for a group of people with extra ordinary character and skills to come together and protect the world from this uncertain evil. Unfortunately, all the greatest people are the figments of the imagination of Bram Stoker, Jules Verne, H. Rider Haggard, Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, Robert Louis Stevenson, and H. G. Wells. None of these gentlemen exist. Well that's where fantasy comes into play. Let's suppose they do exist and Stoker, Verne, Twain and the others were just chroniclers of their true life exploits. So, we get Haggard's Allan Quatermain (Sean Connery), Stoker's Mina Harker (Peta Wilson), Verne's Captain Nemo (Nasseeruddin Shah), Twain's Tom Sawyer (Shane West), Wilde's Dorian Gray, Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Jason Flemyng), and a character based on Wells' Invisible Man (Rodney Skinner) teaming up to stop The Fantom with an "F" from using the best scientists of the day to create weapons of mass destruction. With these weapons, Fantom frames other countries like England and Germany into thinking they are being attacked by the other which will eventually lead to all out global war. World domination never works for these guys, but it's 1899 and the James Bond movies and books will not be made for another 55 to 60 years. The premise of getting all of these literary figures together seemed like a great idea, but then you have to figure out a way to use them all in a two hour movie and not short change anyone. That wasn't done here as there was only time to really develop one gentleman, and that was Quatermain. Connery gets to be the leader and gets the most back story. Allan Quatermain was the explorer who found King Solomon's Mines made famous by Richard Chamberlain and Sharon Stone in the 1980s. In his retirement in Kenya, he is recruited by the mysterious M (Richard Roxburgh) to create the League and catch the Fantom. It must be an inside joke to have a character named M give Sean Connery an assignment to save the world. I guess Bernard Lee was sick that day. Quatermain misses his son who died on one of his adventures and while seeking the Fantom, tries to take Tom Sawyer under his wing as if he was his own. Tom Sawyer is now all grown up and away from bad influences like Huck Finn and is now a secret agent for the American government on his own mission to catch the Fantom before teaming up with the Gentlemen. Shane West doesn't even try to sound like his Sawyer lived anywhere near the southern region of the United States since there is no hint of an accent. Mina is vampire who had a past relationship with Dorian. That's all you need to know as that is pretty much all you are given in terms of their characters. Wilson and Townsend look good on camera, but their screen time is very limited. Captain Nemo would probably be considered second in command and surprising comes out as being the coolest member of the group. Shah is good for the amount of role he is given and his stunt man is quite the combat fighter. If Shah is doing all of his fighting moments then bully for him, they were good... moments. More of Nemo and his sword would have been real cool. Flemyng tries to make his Jekyll very neurotic and his moments talking to his Mr. Hyde persona in a reflection are fun to watch, but there is just not enough there for us to care. The Mr. Hyde special effect is very odd. The body looks all computer generated, but the face animation looks like they stuck a real actor in a rubber suit. The head and body don't quite match right. It is being compared to what was done in the Hulk, and I have to say the Hulk is a better creation. Poor Skinner gets pretty much no screen time since he plays the Invisible Man. I will say his voice acting is pretty good. I mark for those cockney accents. LXG has decent action set pieces and the movie tries not to dull the audience, but there are just too many characters to try to get over. There are moments when a Gentleman will ask another Gentleman what is their story and they proceed to go into their origins. It feels just so unnatural to have these interludes. Even though they are based on literary works, you would not know it since the origins they do give don't always match the book. The X-Men movies have this problem of too many heroes and not enough time to get to know most of them. Connery looks a bit bored throughout this movie and seems to wish that he was somwhere looking at Catherine Zeta Jones bend over or hugging Michelle Pfeiffer again. He is still "waiting to be impressed." There is hope that the League could return in a sequel, but it is doubtful. This dream premise just doesn't work. It's originality makes it too derivative. Comic book geeks (which I am one of) kissed Allan Moore's bum for creating this amazing story not realizing he did not create a damn thing. He ripped off half a dozen other writers since for some reason he couldn't come up with his own set of heroes. I guess the Watchmen were unavailable that day. The crutch of using literary allusions has to be taken away. When these characters were created a 120 years ago, the writers developed their own styles without basing everything on Shakespeare, Homer, and Sophocles. I can see it now, in the year 2103 Allan Moore V will write the League of Extraordinary Gentlepersons with Indiana Jones, Harry Potter, Jack Ryan, V. I. Warshawski, 50 Cent, and Bill Clinton. Then the game will be on. Final Review: 2 stars out of 5; 5 1/2 out of 10; C+; thumbs down.

1. Terminator 3 may not out gross T2, but at least it is doing better than the first film.

2. I guess Terminator 3 is not doing as well as hoped because if there is no demand for a fourth film, then Arnold will be more likely to run for the Governorship of California.

3. Legally Blonde 2 to me is one of the more disappointing films of the year.

4. I am rooting for Finding Nemo to eventually surpass The Lion King at the box office.

5. It is amazing that the name Nemo is a prominent character in two of the top five movies out this week.

6. I think a sequel to Charlie's Angels should be made where Jacklyn Smith, Kate Jackson, and Farrah Fawcett take back the respect that Cameron, Drew, and Lucy ripped away from them.

7. Looks like SinBRAD the sailor may have sailed his last sea.

8. Starting July 25, 2003, 28 Days Later will add the 4 and a half minute alternate "grimmer" ending that tested poorly with audiences.

9. Unfortunately, The Hulk will still have the same beginning, middle, and end it always had without any changes.

10. It looks like after 7 pretty decent weeks, the Italian Job is in it's last appearance in the top ten.

The trend of unnecessary sequels continues with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence coming back for Bad Boys II. Wow, I did not realize that new ideas for movies had fallen on that hard of times. Bye for now.