LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Underwater cartoon "Finding Nemo," the film produced in a partnership between Pixar Animation Studios and the Walt Disney Co., doused its rivals at the North American box office by selling $70.6 million worth of tickets in its first three days of release, Disney said on Sunday.

The computer-animated fishy tale sent Universal Pictures' Jim Carrey (news) comedy "Bruce Almighty" down to the No. 2 slot with an estimated three-day haul of $35.6 million; the 10-day haul for "Bruce" surged to $135.7 million. Universal is a unit of Vivendi Universal SA .

The top 10 boasted two other newcomers. Paramount Pictures' "The Italian Job," a remake of the 1969 crime caper of the same name, opened at No. 3 with a strong $19.3 million. Paramount is a unit of Viacom Inc .

Twentieth Century Fox's "Wrong Turn," a low-budget teen thriller, grossed a modest $5 million, tied at No. 6 with the studio's "X2: X-Men United." Fox is a unit of News Corp.'s Fox Entertainment Group Inc .

"Finding Nemo," set a new opening record for an animated film, surpassing the $62.5 million bow of Disney/Pixar's "Monsters, Inc." in November 2001, Disney said.

The cartoon revolves around a plucky clownfish in the Australian tropics who must reunite with his father (voiced by Albert Brooks (news)). Ellen DeGeneres (news) also added her voice to the film, which was directed and co-written by Andrew Stanton, a veteran of such Pixar hits as "Toy Story" and "A Bug's Life."

1. Finding Nemo .......... $70,251,710

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $70,251,710

2. Bruce Almighty .......... $37,329,480

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $137,396,070

3. The Italian Job .......... $19,457,944

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $19,457,944

4. The Matrix: Reloaded .......... $15,687,241

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $232,701,046

5. Daddy Day Care .......... $6,744,438

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $81,901,127

6. Wrong Turn .......... $5,161,498

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $5,161,498

7. X2: X-Men United .......... $5,096,942

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $199,365,036

8. The In-Laws .......... $3,741,063

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $14,516,309

9. Down with Love .......... $1,570,924

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $17,151,739

10. The Lizzie McGuire Movie .......... $1,171,379

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $39,324,982

John L.: The return of the Pixar inside references has brought about another record box office weekend with the debut of Disney's Finding Nemo. Pixar's newest computer animated opus dominated the cineplexs. Mark Wahlberg is in his third remake in 2 years with the Italian Job. Few people pulled over to see Eliza Dushku in Wrong Turn, but it seems to have already outgrossed her last major movie, Soul Survivors. Full reviews of Nemo and Italian Job to follow.

The era of the computer animated film continues as Finding Nemo is the best movie of 2003 so far. The group at Pixar have once again out done themselves with an unbelievable effort in animation, color, story, and vocal characterizations. When the previews of this movie started showing up last year I was skeptical. I just did not buy the whole little tiny fish escaping into the big world to find his kidnapped son. The story was just too out there for me. After sitting through this somewhat long for a children's movie, I have to say one should never judge a film's quality by just its trailer. Finding Nemo is about Marlin the clown fish's (Albert Brooks) quest to rescue his son from an Aussie dentist in Sydney, Australia. The trials and tribulations he goes through like 12-step sharks, barracudas, whales, sea turtles, stinging jellyfish, and a psychopathic 8 year old girl are amazing to behold. Marlin does have some help in the form of Dory (Ellen DeGeneres), who has short term memory loss and keeps forgetting why Marlin looks so familiar. Dory is one of the funniest characters of the year as Ellen's voice acting is much better here than in any of her regular live acting performances. In fact, I liked her performance so much, I am putting a moratorium on goofing on her name for at least a year. Nemo (Alexander Gould) is the last child of Marlin. In the beginning of the film, Marlin's wife and other 399 potentials get wiped out, so Marlin has to raise Nemo by himself which makes him a very overprotective father. Plus, Nemo has a smaller fin on one side that hinders his swimming capabilities. That fin disturbed me throughout the whole movie since it swims at the speed of a hummingbird even when the little fish is trying to stay still. Gimp fins are not my friend. Nemo's frustration with his father's constant barrage of "no, you can't do that Nemo" causes the little guy to make a stand which puts him in the very large hands of a scuba diver. The really sad thing is just before this, Nemo said he hated his father for not letting him swim out farther in the ocean. Now, Marlin feels guilty that that was their last conversation, he feels obligated to save his son's life before he becomes a delicacy at Amazon Trail or something. I'm a sucker for stories about parents doing all they can to help their children and Marlin is an amazing fish as he is quite small compared to every other fish in the sea, but his heart is so big and to a certain extent broken that nothing stands in his way. The memory impaired Dory is a help, but her forgetfulness hurts almost as much. In this politically correct world, I will not be surprised when the Society of Short-Term Umm What's Our Name Again Association gets wind of this movie they will probably say that it is an offensive portrayal that denigrates their um, what were they talking about again? This gimmick could have gotten real annoying very fast, but I laughed everytime Dory asked Marlin who he was and why he is swimming so close to her. Marlin is the star, but Nemo's own story is not forgotten as he ends up in the aquarium of a dentist who sounds like the Crocodile Hunter. The cast of fish in that bowl are very amusing. One thinks that the reflection in the glass is another fish, another is a blowfish that has trouble not blowing up, another is a anal retentive something or other that likes to keep the tank clean, and then there is Gill (Willem Dafoe), the oldest fish in the aquarium who has the scars to show his failed escape attempts. He has an elaborate plan to get out of captivity and Nemo just may be his ticket to freedom. Dafoe seems to be channeling Denis Leary in his delivery, but his voice work is as great as the other main characters. Their escape plan has a time limit as Nemo is scheduled to be the birthday present to the dentist's niece in about 5 days, and she is a psycho who ended up killing her last fish pet after shaking the plastic bag too hard. So, with two exciting stories going on at once, Finding Nemo never finds the time to slow down even when the sea turtles show up to have some fun. This is a movie you can just look at in awe at the beautiful animation that runs through it. The sea looks like a real sea but with more vibrant colors. Some of the fish seem to be photo realistic and not just basic CG effects. Pixar still can't draw a human shape to save their life, but as is the case in all of their movies, humans are secondary or even tertiary characters that get little exposure to the audience. I do wish that Disney movies would drop the "must kill a parent to provide proper drama" crutch so many of their movies have. Nemo's mom, Coral (Elizabeth Perkins) gets very little screen time which makes her death seem too abrupt and at this point clichéd. After Lion King, that bit should have been retired. Nemo's lucky fin deformity is also hard to look at. You will find yourself staring at it and miss anything else that goes on in the movie. "Oh my, here comes the net to get Nemo! But look, he has a gimpy fin, ewww!" The story is fun and moves well, but unlike most of the Pixar movies, this one does not have that epic chase feel that Monster Inc. and the Toy Storys had. The climax is a bit anti-climatic in its excitement level. Up to the big finish, everything was great, but the ending was just a bit of a let down compared to what is usually done. As it stands though, I loved this movie. It was funny, thrilling, scary, touching, sad, and for some reason something got in my eye in the last five minutes that made it very salty. Finding Nemo will definitely win the Oscar for best Animated film next year, but it should also be in the running for overall Best Picture like "Beauty and the Beast" was. It's that good. Final Review: 4 1/2 stars out of 5; 9 out of 10; A; thumbs up.

To see The Italian Job, the sort of remake of the 1969 Michael Caine original would be a waste of your time. The movie is okay, but there is nothing in it that warrants you taking 2 hours out of your life. It is the story of a gold heist in Venice, Italy gone bad and how the good thieves try to get their proper cut from the bad thief. The good thieves are Charlie (Mark Wahlberg), Handsome Rob (Jason Statham), Left-Ear (Mos Def), Lyle AKA Napster (Seth Green), and John (Donald Sutherland). The bad thief is Steve (Edward Norton), who double (or is it quintuple) crosses them and gets the $35 million in gold bricks for himself so he can buy all the big screen TVs he wants. Of the good thieves, only Sutherland's character is murdered while the others escape certain death. That's too bad for Sutherland since this was to be his last job and he was going to go totally legit and finally take the time to be with his daughter Stella (Charlize Theron) since most of her life he had spent in prison or off doing elaborate heists. It takes a year, but Charlie and the others are able to find Steve and plot a scam based on their Italian job to get the gold back to the good thieves. Fortunately, Stella is a safe cracker who tests safe security for the cops. This will come in handy when they get Steve's safe and have to open it to get to the bullion. This eventually leads to a big car chase where the traffic light computer system of Los Angeles, California is hacked so that traffic moves in the desired direction. All of this is fine and dandy and the techniques to get the job done are good if not especially clever and when the movie is over you will sit there and say, okay that was adequate enough I guess. The problem with this movie is that there is never any real urgency or overwhelming dilemma our good thieves have to go through. If the plan is to set an explosive somewhere so that something blows up just the right way, lo and behold, it works out just as planned. Need to break into Steve's mansion to get the layout of the place, no problem, hijack a cable truck and infiltrate the house as a cable TV repair person. Need to alter L.A. traffic, no problem, just type in a few algorhythmic codes and voila, red light here, green light there all the way. Everything is just too convenient. No one gives a particularly bad performance, even though Edward Norton is completely wasted as a 1/2 note villain. His Steve character is underwritten and completely uninteresting. Norton has made a career out of playing people that should not be trusted from his non-crazed murder suspect in Primal Fear, to the double crossing thief in The Score, to the same type of thief in Italian Job. There is no twist to his persona or deeper motivation. He just wants a big house and big televisions. The movie goes in a straight line from A to A.2 and never deviates from that. No one in the good thief group turns on the others. Everyone stays on their same side of the yin and yang. In a way that is good since it is expected in a movie like this that some person that is portrayed as good is actually evil, but that never happens. Donald Sutherland's character is killed off, and that's it, he's dead. No miraculous comeback, no turning around in a leather chair out of the shadows, just death so that Charlize can enter the picture and try to act pissed off. The Italian Job is just fair. At least one extra action sequence is needed and a couple twists and turns in the plot to make things interesting. As it stands, this job should be laid off. Final Review: 2 stars out of 5; 5 out of 10; C+; thumbs down.

1. Bruce Almighty dropped quite a bit at the box office, but its totals are still excellent for a Jim Carrey movie.

2. Blockbuster movies are different from the smaller films that take 8 or 10 weeks to earn a $100 million while films like Bruce can do it in under two.

3. Matrix Reloaded is getting criticized for not being on track to make at least $300 million while it is already at $232 million which is more than enough for any film to earn.

4. It will be quite interesting to see how Matrix Revolutions does since Reloaded gets more flack for being a somewhat weak sequel.

5. For some reason, Daddy Day Care taking over two months to earn a $100 million is understandable to the box office pundits.

6. Wrong Turn seems to show that there is a core audience that will see any marginally promoted horror/slasher film that looks very uninteresting.

7. X2 is now the second most successful film ever based on Marvel Comics characters.

8. Looking on the bright side, if you include the $70 millions of Finding Nemo, and The In-Laws totals, Albert Brooks is having a good week.

9. Down With Love is almost down and out of the top 10, que sera, sera.

10. Hilary Duff will be saying goodbye to Disney as well as the top of the box office list.

Vroom, vroom vroooooom! Next week we find out who's smarter, Vin Diesel or Paul Walker as 2 Fast/2 Furious comes out with an all new, except for Walker, cast and director. I'm sure we will all be winners. Bye for now.