By Dean Goodman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - "Men in Black II" zapped its rivals at the North American box office for a second consecutive weekend, while the Tom Hanks crime drama "Road to Perdition" enjoyed a gangbusters opening at No. 2, according to studio estimates issued Sunday.

The sci-fi comedy sequel sold about $25 million worth of tickets for the July 12-14 weekend, taking its 12-day total to $133.3 million. "Men in Black II" was released by Columbia Pictures, a unit of Sony Corp ( news - web sites).

"Road to Perdition" (DreamWorks), a gritty saga starring Hanks as a vengeful killer on the run in 1930s Illinois, grossed $22.1 million in its first three days. However, the film played in half the number of theaters as the "Men" sequel: 1,797 vs. 3,611. In fact, every other film in the top 10 played wider than "Road," which will gradually expand over the next few weeks, said Jim Tharp, the president of distribution at the privately owned studio.

Three other films debuted impressively: the Matthew McConaughey apocalyptic thriller "Reign of Fire" (Touchstone) at No. 3 with $16 million; the horror picture "Halloween: Resurrection" (Dimension) at No. 4 with $12.3 million; and family adventure "The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course" (MGM) at No. 6 with $10 million.

The top five was rounded out by the Adam Sandler comedy "Mr. Deeds" (Columbia), which fell three places to No. 5 with $11 million in its third weekend. Its total stands at $99 million.

According to tracking firm Exhibitor Relations, the combined sales for the top 12 films were about even with last weekend, and up about 20 percent from the year ago period, when "Legally Blonde" opened at No. 1 with $20 million.

'MINORITY REPORT' PASSES $100 MILLION

Along with "Men in Black II," one other film passed the century mark: "Minority Report" (Fox) with $110.3 million after 24 days. The Tom Cruise sci-fi thriller tumbled five places to No. 9 with $7.4 million for the weekend, hit hard by the similarly adult-oriented "Road to Perdition."

"Men in Black II" hit $100 million last Wednesday -- its eighth day of release, about even with its 1997 predecessor, said Jeff Blake, Columbia's president of worldwide marketing and distribution. The film, reportedly budgeted at $140 million, marks a reunion of director Barry Sonnenfeld with stars Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith.

"Perdition" represents the second feature of English director Sam Mendes, who won an Academy Award in 2000 for his debut, "American Beauty." The audience for the R-rated "Perdition" was evenly split by gender, with viewers over 35 comprising half the audience, said DreamWorks' Tharp.

Since adults do not rush theaters to see a picture on its opening weekend, DreamWorks opted for the conservative roll-out in hopes that positive word-of-mouth and reviews would underpin the movie over the long haul, Tharp said.

The spectacular $12,305 average from each theater was on par with the average for Hanks' "Saving Private Ryan," which opened with $30.5 million in 1998 on its way to a domestic haul of $216 million. The next highest average in the top 10 was $6,923 for "Men in Black II."

Paul Newman and English actor Jude Law also star in "Perdition." DreamWorks co-financed the film with Twentieth Century Fox, a unit of Fox Entertainment Group Inc., which will release it internationally.

ROOKIES ON TARGET

The debuts for the other rookies generally met their respective studios' expectations. "Reign of Fire" drew mostly young males to its tale of fire-breathing dragons, said a spokeswoman for Walt Disney Co., which released the picture through its Touchstone Pictures banner.

"Halloween: Resurrection," starring Jamie Lee Curtis, cost only $13 million to make, and will be very profitable, said a spokesman at Disney-owned Dimension, the genre banner of Miramax Films. The opening was similar to that of "Halloween: H20," which revived the horror franchise in 1998.

"Crocodile Hunter," which cost between $10 million and $12 million to make, will also be very profitable, said Erik Lomis, president of domestic distribution at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. . The conservation-themed film, starring colorful Australian TV personality Steve Irwin a.k.a. the Crocodile Hunter, played well with family audiences, Lomis said.

New releases next weekend include the spider horror "Eight Legged Freaks" (a Wednesday bow); the Harrison Ford submarine thriller "K-19: The Widowmaker" and the talking-mouse sequel "Stuart Little 2" (both Friday).

Reuters/Variety

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Following are the final data for the top 10 movies at the North American box office during the July 12-14 weekend, according to studio figures released Monday by Exhibitor Relations Co. Inc.

Film Three-day Cumulative

Title Gross

1. Men in Black II .......... $24,410,311

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $132,688,511

2. Road to Perdition .......... $22,079,481

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $22,079,481

3. Reign of Fire .......... $15,632,281

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $15,632,281

4. Halloween: Resurrection .......... $12,292,121

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $12,292,121

5. Mr. Deeds .......... $10,842,415

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $93,975,613

6. The Crocodile Hunter .......... $9,537,123

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $9,537,123

7. Lilo & Stitch .......... $8,024,738

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $118,411,367

8. Like Mike .......... $7,833,279

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $32,819,934

9. Minority Report .......... $7,216,069

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $110,137,457

10. The Bourne Identity .......... $5,761,380

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $99,026,945

Reuters/Variety

John L.: Men in Black II fell sharply this week, but it is still the number one film beating out some very diverse competition.  Road to Perdition is the first Tom Hanks movie since "That Thing You Do" that did not open at number one, but its $22 million take is quite respectable and shows that Tom Hanks is the most bankable star out there right now.  Reign of Fire had the best ad campaign and a very good preview, but people may have thought they got all of the best moments in the 2 minute showcase.  More in my review.  Just like Michael Myers the character, the Halloween movie series refuses to die.  My full review of Halloween 8 later in the report.

REIGN OF FIRE - FULL REVIEW

Reign of Fire was one of my most anticipated movies this Summer.  The shots of the dragons breathing fire and flying around looked awesome and it was so fun to growl "Reeeiiingggrrnnn of Firrrrggeee!"  Unfortunately, the preview is more exciting than the movie.  Acutally the movie is exciting, but there is only about 10 minutes of actual dragon footage spread out throughout the film.  The main focus is on us earthlings trying to survive the dragon threat.  Reign's premise is that a young boy somehow awakens a sleeping dragon underneath a London, England construction site.  This sparks an invasion of a million dragons within a year and most of the world becomes the ancient beasts' playground.  It seems that dragons are the ones who took out the dinosaurs oh so long ago and now it is time to cook the puny humans.  The boy grows up and becomes Quinn played by Christian Bale who is the de facto leader of the human resistance movement against the flying demons.  After continuing to lose their spot on the food chain, in comes possible help or possibly just as many problems with the entrance of Matthew McConaughey as Van Zan a cocky American trying to be the top dragon slayer.  Since every movie needs female that takes control we have Izabella Scorupco as Alex who is an expert in flying special helicopters that take on dragons head on.  Her character is pretty good and there is not time wasted with her falling in love with McConaughey or Bale.  No time, too many dragons to catch.  Character development is not a strong part of the film, but it does spend a lot of time on Quinn's frustrations with his current life that changed when he was a little boy and turned him into an adult way too soon.  Bale is very good here and he shows that he is a very underrated actor who never gives a bad performance and he finally gets to use his regular voice this time after playing arrogant Americans in American Psycho and Shaft. The movie tries to focus more on the humans than the dragons and that was not the way to go with this film. But the makers of Reign of Fire had no choice since it costs quite a bit of cash to create these beasts so that they look real on the big screen.  It seems that the budgets was not enough to have a dragon breathe fire every ten minutes so they just spread ten minutes of dragon footage over an hour and 45 minute period.  Only one dragon attacks at a time and in the one group scene of dragons most are in the distance and no real detail is shown.  If you have seen the preview, you have seen the majority of dragon sequences and their screen time.  The special effect is pretty good, but is a bit below what the Jurassic Park movies have done in terms of mixing humans and pre-historic animals together.  As ROF went on it appeared that the movie funds were fading quickly as the last 15 minutes of the movie has the worse dragon footage.  Characters are supposed to be standing in front of the biggest baddest fiercest dinosaur cooking world dominating snaggle tooth to ever exist, but it looks like they are watching the same movie the audience is because of the obvious glowing blue/green screen effect and what looks like a projection of a dragon on a wall and not a 3 dimensional creature about to smash some leftover human interlopers.  The final battle should have definitely looked better, and its poor execution completely negates any positive moments the film had.  Because there was not enough money to have dragons on all the time, we get to spend way too much time with people that are never really given anything to do except to look up in the sky and wait for the computer graphics artists to go to work.  The biggest crime of all this movie commits is having Alice Krige of "Ghost Story" and Star Trek: First Contact" fame only in the first 10 minutes of the movie as Quinn's mother.  Her career looked so promising 20 years ago and I don't know what happened.  My suggestion is to find a copy of the full 3 minute trailer for Reign of Fire and watch it.  All of the good parts are there and you feel you get more out of the dragons when they make up 80 percent of the preview instead of the 10 percent in the actual film.  Dragons are the most over used creatures in fantasy fiction books and are some of the most misused imaginary fiends in movies.  The books make them cool, but the cinematic artists still have a lot of work to do.  Reign of Fire had potential, but it did not achieve it.  Final Review:  2 stars out of 5; 5 out of 10: C; thumbs down.  

HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION - FULL REVIEW

A few years ago when Scream 3 was released I did reviews of the Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, and Halloween movie series.  In my Halloween: H2O comments I said that the series was decisively ended when Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) Strode decapitated Michael Myers.  Myers had been shot 2 dozen times, burned, stabbed, kicked, beat, and stomped and still came back for more, but I did not think he could actually re-attach his head to his shoulders unless Laurie had cut off the wrong head meaning Myers was never killed in the first place.  Well, lo and behold Larry Brand, screenwriter of Halloween:  Resurrection must read my site because that is the exact explanation given to why the 8th Halloween, technically the 7th one with Michael Myers has been released.  I know that most people will not want to see this Halloween movie, but may have been curious about how Michael could have survived, so since this is revealed in the first 5 minutes of the movie, it is not much of a spoiler.  Michael had switched bodies with an EMT and escaped to slash another day and in this new movie Michael is back to take revenge on all those who have crossed him. Oh wait, revenge was part 5, sorry.  The first 15 minutes of Resurrection has your Jamie Lee Curtis "cameo" which is her 4th appearance in a Halloween movie.  She makes her last stand against Michael and if you know the rules of horror movies, you know what that means.  Laurie Strode finally falls victim to the butcher knife.  Oh, should I have put some spoiler space before I revealed that big secret?  No, not really.  Like I said, no one cares and Laurie's death is a bit suspect.  If another movie is made, they could bring her back if they want to.  No one felt for a pulse is all I will say.  With Laurie out of the way, that would seemingly leave Michael with nothing to do so he goes back to his old home to chill and live out the rest of his days.  But, it seems people will not let him rest in peace.  Freddie (Busta Rhymes) is an internet entrepreneur.  You can tell that this movie was made quite a while ago since very few people try to make money off the internet nowadays.  He wants to take a group of college students to the Myers house where Michael killed his sister oh so long ago while she was doing her hair.  The students will have cameras "Blair Witch Project" style and all of it will be shown on the internet for the viewing and paying public.  Of course as soon as they enter the house, Michael gets into his Marlene Dietrich mode and wants to be left alone so he does his best to ensure that.  I am a fan of this series and Halloween 8 or 7 if you prefer since part 3 doesn't really count is pretty good compared to some of the last 3.  Michael is his most brutal since Halloween 2 where people were getting their faces melted and had a hypodermic needle shoved in their eyeball.  Lots of beheadings, stabbings through the chest so the victim hangs on the wall, throat cuts, and the ever popular impaling through a sharp object that just happens to be sticking out at the end of the hallway.  The acting in this movie is sub par, but there was not much to work with so it can't be faulted too much.  All they have to do is run and scream a lot and I am happy.  Busta is an acquired taste and he can be very annoying with his muted rap hip hop style here, but I personally enjoyed his performance especially when he is goofing on Michael's whole appearance and gimmick to his face.  He is the only one that stands out while the others just do their job.  Tyra Banks shows up for about 7 minutes of total screen time and even though there is a picture circulating of Michael sneaking up behind her, that scene is not in the movie.  Her death sequence (spoiler alert... oh damn forgot again) is done off screen and you only see the aftermath of the attack.  She is probably the worst in the film because she is given nothing to do and I wondered why they even bothered to cast her.  The internet plot is actually done very well here and puts some good suspense later in the film when one of the students uses a PDA to contact a watcher of the show and they are given warnings of how close Michael is behind them.  It is corny, cheesy, and a bit stupid, but it allows the movie to have fun with some of the standard slasher movie cliches like not going into that dark room or the ever popular "he's not dead you idiot" bit.  More spoiler stuff, but this has to do with the ending, so I will warn you a bit.  All but 2 people fall victim to Myers until he is electrocuted and burned again at the end.  He has had worse trauma over the years.  The very last shot of the film is of Michael Myers opening his eyes ready to strike again.  I have no idea how this series will ever end since the makers seem unable to commit to a final Michael moment.  Halloween:  Resurrection is only for true die hard fans who liked at least part 4 and H2O in the series along with parts 1 and 2.  If you only liked the first Halloween and refused to see the others or hated the sequels then avoid this film at all costs.  This version of Michael is very similar to the one portrayed in part 2 except the Resurrection version tends to walk a bit too fast.  H:R should only be viewed by people who are fans of the body count since there really was no reason for this film to exist past the first 15 minutes.  It is more like an episode of a television series after that.  I personally enjoyed this film since I am the only true die hard fan left.  It is the best Halloween since Halloween: The Return of Michael Myers.  So, in order of best to worse we have Halloween, Part 2, Part 4: The Return of Michael Myers, Resurrection, H2O, Part 3 Season of the Witch (underrated), Part 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, and the worse one of all, Part 6: The Curse of Michael Myers.  Halloween Resurrection tries to give some insight into Michael's motivations, but most of it turns out to be lies, so we still have very little idea why Myers does the things he does.  It should be kept a mystery.  Final Review:  3 stars out of 5; 7 out of 10; B; thumbs up for the freaky fans like me.  For the average and above moviegoer appalled by this stuff the Final Review is:  1 star out of 5; 3 1/2 out of 10; D; thumbs down.  When it is all said and done, it should have ended with Halloween Part 2 and at worst H2O.

REST OF THE TOP 10 IN 10:

1.    Men in Black II is not very good, but the name alone has guaranteed it a decent run at the box office.

2.    I could see a Men in Black television series in the future that is live action and not a cartoon.

3.    Tom Hanks plays a sympathetic hitman because it would be just too hard for the audience to buy Hanks as a villain.

4.    I personally would enjoy seeing if Hanks can do the Denzel "Training Day" villain stretch.

5.    Adam Sandler's Mr. Deeds is the type of film that actors who were once risque make when they want to have something they can show their kids to prove that they were a star once.

6.    Crikey, mate, it looks like Steve Irwin may have more trouble catching box office gold than he does those nasty crocs in the outback.

7.    Elvis may have left the building, but Lilo and Stitch continues to remain in the top ten.

8.    Unlike Michael Jordan, Like Mike may not make an average Jordan annual salary when its run at the cineplex is over.

9.    Someone should have predicted that Minority Report needed a tighter script and then maybe it would have had a better chance of getting better positive word of mouth.

10.    Congratulations Mr. Damon, you have your first starring role hit since Good Will Hunting.

Next week, more movies are released and I bet that not a lot of people care since most are saving their pennies for Austin Powers in Goldmember.  Bye for now.