By Steve Gorman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Street-racing movie sequel "2 Fast 2 Furious" beat a computer-animated clown fish to the finish line at the North American box office, grossing $52.1 million its first three days in theaters, according to studio estimates issued on Sunday.

The follow-up to 2001's super-charged action film featuring fast cars and hot, young actors surpassed the $40.1 opening of the original "The Fast and the Furious" to give distributor Universal Pictures its second consecutive wide release to open at No. 1 with more than $50 million in ticket sales.

Universal's last film, the Jim Carrey comedy "Bruce Almighty," lorded over the box office two weeks ago with $68 million in its first three days and nearly $86 million for the entire four-day Memorial Day holiday weekend.

Last week's No. 1 film, the animated undersea adventure "Finding Demo," about a clown fish trying to rescue his son from an aquarium, ranked No. 2 this weekend with $45.8 million in Friday-through-Sunday ticket sales.

"Nemo," the latest collaboration from Walt Disney Co. and Pixar Animation Studios Inc., saw its cumulative box-office total rise to $143.3 million. It grossed more than $70 million last weekend, the biggest bow ever for an animated feature.

"Bruce Almighty," starring Carrey as a TV newsman who gets to play God, grossed $21.7 million in its third weekend, sliding a notch to No. 3 and boosting its tally to $170.8 million.

As expected, "2 Fast," rated PG-13, did well with its target audience of young moviegoers, despite the sequel's absence of muscled action hero Vin Diesel. Universal's exit-polling showed that 75 percent of the film's audience was under age 25, divided 55 percent male, 45 percent female.

Shifting from the Los Angeles street-racing scene to a new location in Miami, the John Singleton-directed sequel stars Paul Walker (an undercover cop in the first film), and an ethnically diverse cast including recording star Tyrese, rapper-actor Chris "Ludacris" Bridges and actresses Devon Aoki and Eva Mendes.

Overall movie business in the United States and Canada was robust, with the top 12 films collectively grossing $157 million, up 52 percent over the same weekend a year ago, according to box office tracking service Exhibitor Relations Co.

Studio executives attributed the healthy numbers to a broad mix of motion pictures in the marketplace, from family friendly fare like "Nemo," "Bruce Almighty" and "Daddy Day Care" to action-heavy movies like "2 Fast 2 Furious," "The Italian Job," "The Matrix Reloaded" and "X2: X-Men United."

"There's something for everybody out there," said Nikki Rocco, president of distribution for Universal Pictures, a unit of Vivendi Universal .

It was the third weekend in a row that overall receipts topped year-ago sales -- and the second straight week of double-digit increases -- putting Hollywood on track to reverse its first-quarter box-office slump.

Landing at No. 4 in its second weekend was another movie featuring a car chase, caper film "The Italian Job," a remake of a 1969 Michael Caine film, which grossed $13.3 million as it added play dates to another 244 theaters. The sci-fi action adventure "The Matrix Reloaded" was No. 5 with $9.1 million in ticket sales.

Rounding out the top 10 this weekend were: the Eddie Murphy comedy "Daddy Day Care" at No. 6 with 4.8 million, followed by "X2" (No. 7, $3 million), the thriller "Wrong Turn" (No. 8, $2.65 million), the Albert Brooks comedy "The In-Laws" (No. 9, $2 million), and the arthouse hit "Bend It Like Beckham" (No. 10, $975,000).

Reuters/VNU

1. 2 Fast 2 Furious .......... $50,472,480

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $50,472,480

2. Finding Nemo .......... $46,589,649

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $144,043,789 3

2. Bruce Almighty .......... $22,358,715

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $171,435,525

3. The Italian Job .......... $13,163,133

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $40,000,274

5. The Matrix: Reloaded .......... $9,186,342

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $247,778,753

6. Daddy Day Care .......... $4,613,566

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $88,465,297

7. X2: X-Men United .......... $3,006,643

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $204,263,301

8. Wrong Turn .......... $2,654,013

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $9,741,494

9. The In-Laws .......... $1,978,398

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $17,896,585

10. Bend It Like Beckham .......... $942,320

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $20,545,640

John L.: "It's the cars stupid" seems to be the phrase that pays as the sequel to "Fast and the Furious" opened very well without the star appearing in it. People wondered if 2 Fast 2 Furious could be a success without the presence of Vin Diesel. A fifty million dollar opening weekend shows that the answer is yes. Full review to follow. There are no other new movies in the top 10 as the box office continues to do well. Matrix Reloaded has become a big hit despite the naysayers as well as X2. They are the first 2 movies to cross the $200 million mark this year. Finding Nemo looks to follow them very soon.

Paul Walker is not a stupid guy. He was offered to do the sequel to Fast and the Furious and he pretty much knew he would be an idiot to pass on it since the odds of "Joyride 2" being made are slim. Mr. Diesel decided to pass on a sequel and go for the more mindless stuff like XXX. The jury is still out on who made the better decision. When last we left Brian O'Connor (Walker) he was letting Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) escape imeninet arrest for his hijacking of trucks. That one act made me detest the first movie because the pretty boy villain got a way clean and I had problems with that. Sort of how drug dealing Mel Gibson in "Tequilla Sunrise" got away with everything because he was Mel Gibson. Since Diesel did not return for the sequel, we never learn what eventually happened to his character. He could be dead, but nothing is ever said in 2F2F. What is said is that O'Connor has been fired from the police force for his actions and is now living in Miami, Florida. Since being undercover in the underground street racing crowd gave him some practical streetwise skills, he now goes around and tries to win Miami street races with his souped up cars. After another successful street race, O'Connor gets arrested. He is offered his old job back if he goes undercover and exposes some sort of dirty money transfer scheme. I'm still not clear on what illegal activity Carter Verone (Cole Hauser) was doing that deserved this much drama, but things like that are not important when there are fast cars to show. To help beef up his street cred, O'Connor finds his old running buddy, Roman (Tyrese) who he actually helped put in jail years ago. After some male bonding, the two hug and make up and go after the bad guy. Also undercover is Monica (Eva Mendes), who is pretending to be Carter's "girlfriend." She is so convincing that O'Connor and Roman have doubts about her loyalty since she has been undercover and under the covers for over a year and little progress has been made in the case. With this set up we get several repetitive action sequences of cars going very fast and gears shifting very hard and loud. The movie is never boring, but it is all style and no substance. Everything is as it is on screen. The little ambiguity in the Monica character is extremely feint, and her true loyalties are really never in doubt. Since the bad guy's true intentions are never really that clear we get scenes of him looking mean and torturing a bad cop he has on his secret payroll. John Singleton directed this film and it is quite different from his more "relevant" work. He obviously wanted to make a pure popcorn chomping edge of your seat action picture with a rainbow of different looking people all working together in that magical world he complains about never existing in his other films like "Boyz 'N The Hood" and "Higher Learning." It's nice to see, but it is also very obvious what he is doing and it does not come off as natural. The first street race is good, especially the added bridge jump moment. Singleton brings a whole new meaning to the idea of a "race movie." One driver is white, one black, one Hispanic, and the other is a half Asian woman. O'Connor is white and his best friend since childhood is black, Roman. That's all well and good, but Paul Walker as O'Connor just sounds silly when he tries to "blacken it up" by calling everyone "bro" all the time. His acting style is energetic, but not convincing in the situations he is put in where he passes himself off as a hipster. Tyrese seems to be having fun as Roman and gives a decent performance. He smiles too much, but he does make you forget about Vin Diesel. Eva Mendes looks great and unlike most Hispanic actresses trying to break out in mainstream movies she doesn't have a thick accent that makes it difficult to understand what she is saying that has hurt the careers of Salma Hayek and Rosie Perez. Believe it or not, this movie is more mindless than the first, but it is also more fun. 2 Fast 2 Furious never takes itself seriously. The ending of the movie is a bit abrupt and seemed a bit unfinished. I guess they wanted to leave a canyon wide opening for a sequel. Final Review: 2 1/2 stars out of 5; 5 1/2 out of 10; B-; thumbs up.

REST OF THE TOP 10 IN 10:

1. Hopefully, kids with fish won't start flushing their own pet sea life down the toilet to return them to the ocean since unlike what is said in the movie, it does not work like that.

2. After Ellen DeGeneres' fantastic voice work in Finding Nemo, she gets a permanent bye from me of goofing on her.

3. Bruce Almighty has a slight chance of outgrossing Jim Carrey's biggest hit, "The Grinch."

4. Due to the release of Italian Job, Danica McKellar keeps getting calls about people riding around in Winnie Coopers.

5. If you rent the Animatrix DVD pay close attention to "Final Flight of the Osiris" and "Kid's Story" as they both relate directly to plot points in Matrix Reloaded.

6. With the good box office of Daddy Daycare, the days of Eddie Murphy ever saying the "eff word" again on the big screen seem to be over.

7. Since the current crop of X2 Xmen are getting a little long in the tooth, I would not be surprised to see spinoff films with the younger mutants who are under the age of 22.

8. I belive the wrong turn was made by the people who decided that Wrong Turn would be a good investment.

9. Even though Albert Brooks is good in Finding Nemo, he is not off my goof list like Ellen is when he still makes live action films like In-Laws that are avoided like monkey pox.

10. Bend it Like Beckham at least is better received than Victoria "Posh" Beckham's "Spice World" movie.

Harrison Ford and a faux Jim Carrey try to pull over the fast cars of 2 Fast 2 Furious. However, it looks like Finding Nemo might just find its way back to the top of the box office again next week. We shall see. Bye for now.