By Dean Goodman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Arnold Schwarzenegger (news) is back.

The Austrian action hero grabbed the No. 1 slot at the North American box office on Sunday as his long-awaited sci-fi thriller "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines" led the field during the July 4 U.S. holiday weekend.

The third movie in the Terminator franchise sold $44.1 million worth of tickets for the Friday-to-Sunday period, and a total of $72.5 million since opening on July 2.

The movie sets a new record for Schwarzenegger, 55, who has not had a big hit in years. His previous best opening was "Batman & Robin" with $42.8 million in 1997. The last Terminator movie, "Terminator 2: Judgment Day," opened with $31.7 million in 1991 and $52 million in its first five days.

"The nervousness is gone. Finally the baby's born, and it's in the public's hands," said Andrew Vajna, a producer of the film, which was reportedly budgeted at between $150 million and $175 million.

Vajna and partner Mario Kassar partnered on the project with Intermedia, an affiliate of German film company IM Internationalmedia AG, and they auctioned distribution rights by territory. Warner Bros., a unit of AOL Time Warner Inc., picked up North American rights.

The bow for "Terminator 3" ranks as the second best for an R-rated film after "The Matrix: Reloaded," which opened with $91.8 million in May. Studios are increasingly shying away from R-rated films, which require viewers under 17 to be accompanied by an adult, because of tighter marketing restrictions.

Jonathan Mostow ("U-571") took over from James Cameron (news) to direct "Terminator 3," which also stars Nick Stahl (news), Claire Danes (news) and newcomer Kristanna Loken (news) as an evil cyborg. Schwarzenegger has said he was paid $30 million to star.

'BLONDE' BOMBSHELL

The top 10 contained two other new entries, which also opened in theaters last Wednesday to get an early start on the holiday moviegoing audience.

"Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde," a comedy starring Reese Witherspoon (news) as a fashionista who takes on the Washington establishment, was No. 2 with $22.9 million for the weekend, and $39.2 million for the five days. Its 2001 predecessor, "Legally Blonde" sold $20 million in its first three days. Both were released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc.

About 70 percent of the audience was female, and of those 62 percent were under 21, said Erik Lomis, MGM's president of distribution. The film cost under $50 million, with Witherspoon taking a $15 million salary.

The cartoon "Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas" flopped at No. 6 with $6.8 million for the weekend and $10.0 million for the five days.

The film, released by privately held DreamWorks SKG, features the voices of such big names as Brad Pitt (news), Michelle Pfeiffer (news) and Catherine Zeta-Jones (news), but was hampered by its use of traditional animation techniques rather than the computer-animated wizardry that has turned such films as "Shrek" and "Finding Nemo" into blockbusters.

DreamWorks distribution President Jim Tharp was disappointed but said he hoped the $60 million movie would do well on home video.

Last weekend's champion, "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle," slipped to No. 3 with $14.2 million after losing 62 percent of its audience -- the biggest drop in the top 10. The action comedy's 10-day total rose to $67.2 million. It was released by Columbia Pictures, a unit of Sony Corp (news - web sites).

Overall ticket sales fell for the fourth consecutive weekend when compared with the year-ago period, according to box office tracking firm Exhibitor Relations. The top 12 films earned about $127 million, down 9 percent from last year when Sony's "Men in Black II" led the box office to a July 4 holiday record with a $52 million three-day bow.

1. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines .......... $44,041,440

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $72,387,461

2. Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde .......... $22,220,670

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $38,507,400

3. Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle .......... $14,010,022

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $67,068,572

4. Finding Nemo .......... $11,509,141

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $274,936,974

5. The Hulk .......... $8,227,520

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $117,012,585

6. Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas .......... $6,874,477

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $10,056,980

7. 28 Days Later .......... $6,007,796

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $20,557,346

8. The Italian Job .......... $4,172,641

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $83,876,915

9. Bruce Almighty .......... $4,012,320

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $228,646,570

10. 2 Fast 2 Furious .......... $2,641,820

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $119,437,965

John L.: It's a big box office report this week. The largest in quite some time with three new movie reviews, plus reviews of a couple of modern classics. 

The year 2029 is not as far away as it seemed to be back in 1984 when James' Cameron's "The Terminator" was released. This is one of the most groundbreaking films in the last 20 years that still resonates to this day. The Terminator is a story of fate, destiny, inevitablility, action, horror, violence, herorism, courage, and to a very extreme level, love. When this movie was released it seemed to be on the surface just another run of the mill sci fi action movie with a rising star who still couldn't speak English dat good. The director's only real claim to fame was the cheesy Piranha II: The Spawning. With such low expectations, there was nothing to lose and everything to gain, and gain it did. The rising star was Arnold Scwarzenegger who went on to become the highest paid actor in Hollywood. James Cameron, the director, went on to revolutionize everything he touched by helming Aliens, The Abyss, and the most popular movie ever made, Titanic. He is so successful, he hasn't had to direct a movie since he one the Academy Award for being the "King of the World." Back in the early 1980s, Scwarzenegger was all look and little substance. He was fun to watch in "Pumping Iron" and was born to play "Conan the Barbarian" but he was still not being taken seriously. After O. J. Simpson was turned down for the role of the unstoppable cybernetic terminator for being perceived as being too nice a guy, the producers decided to make Arnold the bad guy android, instead of the hero who must find a way to defeat it. This was a stroke of genius. Arnold has the intimidating look of an unforgiving monster so that was simple. Plus the part only required about 6 lines of dialogue, "Your clothes, give them to me", "Uzi nine millimeta", "Wrong", "Sarah Connor?", "I'm a Friend of Sarah Connor, I was told dat she's here, could I see hu please? [pause] I'll Be back", and "fuck you asshole." Every other line was either a dubbed one "I love you too" or repeating a line already fed to him, "nothing clean, right." This became Arnold's defining role and the one that has given him the most success and respect. The movie's story is now legend. In the near future machines will become self aware and decide that human beings are inferior and launch the world into a nuclear holocaust in which when the dust and radiation clouds settle will be ruled by computers. In the aftermath of armageddon, a hero arises, John Connor. His charisma and courage leads the remaining humans in a rebellion against the new metal gods. Somehow, a time machine is created that the machines use to send back an upgraded Hunter Killer called a Terminator 101 series 800 to 1984 to kill Sarah Connor, John's mother before John is even born so a martyr is not left in the future. Due to time travel paradoxes and causality loops, John knows of this plan and sends back Kyle Reese to intercept the Terminator and protect Sarah from termination. This of course is a one way trip. What occurs is one of the best action movies ever made as it creates 4 characters, one of which never appears on screen, another that isn't human, and two others that must fall in love or humanity is doomed. Linda Hamilton is Sarah Connor and her work in this movie is excellent as she learns just how important her survival is to the fate of the world. Michael Biehn became one of my favorite actors after his performance in Terminator as Reese. He has the burden of explaining what the heck is going on while still finding the emotions he knows he must acquire to fully succeed in his mission. I cannot recommend this movie any higher than perfection. I have viewed it countless times and enjoy more with each viewing even though I know everything that will happen. It's a powerful film that needed to have sequels made to continue the story. The violence is brutal for today's standards especially when it comes to violence against law enforcement. However, a lot of the gruesome stuff is left off screen except for when the Terminator has to remove is damage human looking eyeball. The Terminator is still my favorite movie of the series. Final Review: 5 stars out of 5; 10 out of 10; A+; thumbs up.

In 1991, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, also known as T2, was released and it shook up the world. The first Terminator was well loved and a sequel to it was highly anticipated. But what could they do to top the first film. Well, in most respects it did top it, especially when it comes to special effects. T2's story picks up approximately 10 and a half years after the events of T1. John Connor (Edward Furlong) is a young pre-adolescent living in a foster home and constantly getting into juvenile delinquent trouble. His mom, Sarah (Linda Hamilton) has been institutionalized for spouting off madness about robots from the future as well as attempted mass vandalism of a corporate complex. Since the first mission failed, the computers of the future decide to try again with an upgraded terminator commonly known as a T-1000, and send it back to the past to kill a young John Connor. Why not send it back to 1984 again or 1974? Oh yeah, then there wouldn't have been as cool a movie as we got here. An explanation would be that records on these time periods have been almost completely lost and only very few points of reference exist for optimal termination points. The next optimal time then was what occurs in T2. With a shape shifting, sleeker, meaner, more face friendly T-1000 hunting your scrawny butt, a battle scarred soldier like Kyle Reese was not going to cut it. The future resistance somehow traps a T-101 series 800 Arnold looking Terminator and re-programs it to protect humans, specifically John Connor, and is sent back to the past to protect the future hero and if at all possible defeat the upgraded Terminator. The action in T2 is much more elaborate than the first one, but the story lacks in some parts that puts it below in overall quality. Arnold is now the good guy again and it makes his Terminator somewhat of a wuss. The young John Connor is able to control the T-101 because the older one programmed it too and they are essentially the same person. So instead of having Arnold collect the assholes of punks who step up to him, he tells him he can't go around killing people. Much like the Terminator said in the movie, the audience asks "why?" No reasonable explanation is given. This also leads to the humanization of the robot that sci fi writers like to do all of the time and it becomes frustrating to watch. The line "why do you cry" that the T-101 asks John gives me the willies at its awfulness. Plus "hasta la vista baby" does not have the same resonance as "I'll be back." It also forces Arnold to "act" which was not very necessary in the first film. The acting looks weak since the Terminator is a robot and it shouldn't emote that much. Furlong is extremely grating on the audience's patience. Most of the time you want the T-1000 to catch him and stop the agony. Only Jake "that's what I call pod racing" Lloyd from "Phantom Menace" is more annoying. Linda Hamilton gives her all as the obsessed Sarah Connor. Her buff look makes her credible when she is staring the T-1000 unblinkingly in the face as she is being attacked. It is sad to realize she may have peaked here as an actress. The star of the movie is Robert Patrick as the T-1000. His streamlined look and subtle intensity was perfect. He gets work to this day simply because of the awesomeness he gave to this role. There should have been a movie where there were just Patrick type T-1000 running roughshod on the world. The liquid metal special effect was first used in James Cameron's "The Abyss" with the water creature and it is expanded here to amazing degrees. The morphing and liquidity was used soon after on Star Trek Deep Space Nine's Odo character. Back in 1991, it was the most incredible thing audiences had ever seen. The movie has a couple of different endings that you could take your pick from, but since Terminator 3 was made, the one where Sarah Connor is sitting on a park bench at the age of 75 may not be the one to go with. Despite T2's politically correct action, it is still a groundbreaking film that does deserve it's adulation. Final Review: 4 stars out of 5; 8 out of 10; A-; thumbs up. A Terminator 3D: Battle Across Time was made to show at Universal Studios and it had Arnold, Edward Furlong, Linda Hamilton, and Robert Patrick reprise their Terminator roles in a side adventure that took them into the future temporarily to fight the machines and battle the massive T-One Million. If you get a chance, check it out because it is an interactive Terminator show where actors pretend to be Arnold and co. on a stage to match the events on the screen and it takes place in a 3D environment where things appear to come out of the screen, temperature changes when the T-TM appears, and things seem to touch and grab you in your seat. It is a fun 30 minute romp.

It has been a very long time since Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and the world has changed quite a bit. Haphazardly talking about the end of the world is not so much fun. Despite all of this, a sequel to T2, though not necessary, was inevitable, much like the events in this film. Judgment Day was postponed at the end of T2, but not completely stopped. It is the destiny of humanity to fight the machines. If it wasn't, then none of the previous movies would have occurred. More causality loops I guess. It is now 10 years after the events of T2 and John Connor (Nick Stahl) is a grown adult living off the grid. No real job, no cell phones, no residence of public record. He is making it as difficult as possible to be found by any future terminators out to get him. His mother is missing, and he is on his own. However, who knows it is only a matter of time before he has to run for his life again. In movie time it's about 5 minutes as the newest model of the terminator comes through the time portal. This one is a TX (Kristanna Loken) also known as a Terminatrix, a primarily female in appearance terminator with a morphing endoskeleton that has it change into other people it touches or control other machines it integrates with. This one is stronger than the T-1000 and has more elaborate weaponry. Another T-101 series 800 is sent through by... well that's a secret, but needless to say a T2 version of an Arnold Schwarzenegger cybernetic organism is sent back to protect John and Kate Brewster (Claire Danes). Kate who? Kate is a brand new character never mentioned before in the Terminator movies. She also has a destiny that is inevitable like John's, and must be protected. What occurs then is one long chase sequence as John, Kate, and T-101 try to stop TX from killing them all. The plot is actually pretty good in this third go around mainly because of what has already been established. Mass amounts of exposition is not needed since the audience going to see this movie is waiting for the moment when the computer, Skynet, becomes self aware and tries to take over the world. The question left to ponder is can Skynet and armageddon be stopped this time, or has the future already been made and it must happen? T3 gives an answer to this quandary. T3 is an action packed movie with great stunts and chases and some funny moments here and there. All actors involved give decent performances with special note to Miss Loken as she is quite the looker as the TX. I believe most guys fell in love with her despite the fact that she tends to stick her arm through your back and out your chest when she gets mad. The big battle between Arnold and the TX should win the MTV Movie Award for best fight scene easily. They fight like robots and it looks incredible. It was the highlight of the film. The unfortunate thing for T3 is that there is nothing new here like the other 2 movies had. All of the special effects have been done countless times in other movies that have come out just in the last few weeks. Morphing is no big deal when it can be done on a sitcom like the "Drew Carey Show" and if you have seen one car chase you have seen them all. There is no sense of wonder, or oos, and awes. You sit there and say, boy the TX is cute. Or Claire Danes looks a lot hotter than I remember her from that TV show. Nick Stahl is not half bad as the reluctant hero. And Arnold looks good for a 56 year old ex body builder who hasn't had a real hit since 1994. As a stand alone movie, T3 fails. You have to have seen the other two to have any of this make sense. Put with the others, T3 succeeds as it follows through on the major points made in the previous films. However, if you are a geek for this stuff, like I am, its time line for the events of all three films is a mess. Established dates should not be made for movies like this because they never add up correctly, and eventually that future becomes our past, like the August 1997 date T2 established for Judgment that passed because it took 12 years to make this sequel. The ending is left open to Grand Canyon size as a T4 is as inevitable as well as T5 probably. These movies could go on forever, or Cyberdine forbid, a live action television series where John Connor fights off the machines every week in a post 2029 world. T-TV. The horror, the horror. Final Review: 3 1/2 stars out of 4; 7 1/2 out of 10; B+; thumbs up.

Um, no, not good, not good at all. Reese Whitherspoon's Legally Blonde 2 is not a good movie. Everything that was endearing in the first film is re-used here and is not done as well. I was very disappointed. The last movie ended with Reese's Elle Woods graduating from Harvard Law School and getting on with her life. There were no unanswered questions or reasons to see what she does with the rest of her life. Unfortunately, Legally Blonde 1 did nearly a $100 million at the box office when it was not expected to make half of that since Reese had never been in major hit movie at the time, just some critically acclaimed ones like "Election." This lead to Mrs. Ryan Phillipe's biggest success, "Sweet Home Alabama" that showed that she could open a film to high box office on her name alone. So, now we get the obligatory sequel to LB and it is a poor follow up. The story this time has Elle Woods go to Washington DC to lobby for a bill that would ban animal testing to create cosmetics. She gets a job working for Representative Victoria Wood (Sally Field) to get an inside track to getting a bill to become a law. Elle comes across as a blonde bimbo, but then she makes comments about hair products, hats, dresses, Prada, Gucci, and gay rights and everyone thinks they are listening to a world leader speak and fall to her feat in adulation. The gimmick of everything relating to how someone parts their hair has now jumped the shark more than the jumped the shark phrase. There is not one scene in this movie in which Elle Woods talks like a normal human being. It drove me nuts. A sequel has to be similar but different. It could have been more interesting if people initially did not accept her fashion plate advice and it was used against her, but no, everytime she uses some fancy lipstick logic, it goes over like an amen in church. This causes the movie to become very predictable and boring. The star of the movie is actually the dog, Bruiser that Elle carries around all of the time. Everytime he barks or trots on screen it is funny. The humans are the ones who are a mess. The actors do what they can but the material is not there to do anything of any weight. You pity the actors like Sally Field and Bob Newhart who have to put up with this bad script. At the end of the film, the big inspirational speech is given to inspire the House of Representatives to pass the billl on animal testing. No big secret, all movies like this have it's "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" moment. However, I still have no idea what was said as it made no sense whatsover. In fact, if I was a congressman, I would not only have voted no on the bill, I would have pushed through a law banning all blonde legal aides with a Jackie O. fetish from coming within 10 miles of the Capitol building. Now, this movie was not made to change the world. It is supposed to be slight and be a fun time at the cineplex. It was not a fun time as the audience wants to laugh and have fun, but the movie keeps stopping that fun from happening every 5 minutes. When it is over, you remember the little chihuahua dog being the link that holds this fragile chain together. This should be the l'ast Legally Blonde movie made and no television series should ever be inspired by this drivel. If Sweet Home Alabama 2: She's Not Whistling Dixie" is made, I will discontinue writing my box office reports as the movie industry will have finally abandoned me for good. Final Review: 1 1/2 stars out of 5; 4 out of 10; C; thumbs down.

Pick one, not both, Hollywood. Either do a cartoon with all regular cel animation, or do it with all computer generated styles, not both. You do one, you get Lilo and Stich, a very successful film. You do another, you get Fining Nemo, one of the best movies ever made. You do both together, you get Titan A. E. and Treasure Planet, movies that were not embraced by critics or the general public. Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas does mix both, but not to the extremes of the two mentioned, but enough to be very noticeable. This movie is fine a simple animated adventure, but there is something just a bit off with its presentation. Sinbad (Brad Pitt) is a rogue sailor/pirate/adventurer who takes from the rich and keeps it for himself and his crew as they travel the world in spite of the various follies of the gods. One god in particular, Eris (Michelle Pfeiffer), is bored one millennia and decides to have some fun with Sinbad and his merry men by tricking them into getting the fabled Book of Peace. This leads to Sinbad trying to save the life of his one true friend, Proteus (Joseph Fiennes) and fighting off his attraction to Proteus' fiancée, Marina (Catherine Zeta-Jones-Douglas). If Sinbad does not get the Book of Peace, then Proteus will die. Marina stows away on Sinbad's journey and they along with the crew and their dog face many various creatures and entities. Action comes fast and furious and is well animated with computer effects creating most of the creatures that are encountered. All of this is done very well, and in a different era before the age of Pixar, this movie would have been something special, but now it looks too flat and disarming. The story and characters never get to a point where the audience really cares what happens. There is more emotional involvement for the side character's like Rat and ... and just Rat I guess. Pitt's voice work is pretty sad as it appears the directors threw their hands in the air trying to get Pitt to not sound like he is reading off a sheet of paper. Zeta-Jones-Douglas does adequate voice work, but her animated character looks so much like her that you keep waiting for Antonio Banderas to cut her clothes off with his sword or Sean Connery to teach her how to walk through laser beams. At no point did I think Marina would break out into a bit of "All That Jazz," however. Zeta needed to change her voice and play a character and not herself. Pfeiffer is fun as she brings some of her old Catwoman style seductiveness to her vocal work that applied quite well to Eris. She helps the movie work the most. Too bad her role was not a bit larger. The animation style is a problem as it looks like Sinbad and his guys are stuntmen connected to wires like in the Matrix to do their flippity floppity stunts swinging around their ship. Even though it is a cartoon, the physics look all wrong for what they have to do to get out of various jams. The best sequence in the movie is the giant owl attack on Sinbad and Marina. That was well put together and mixes the classic and computer style the best. The old live action Sinbad movies of yesteryear were much better than this and the monsters were funner to watch. Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas needed to have the side characters do a bit more than stand around and mug for the camera especially Kale voiced by Dennis Haysbert who is the muscle of the crew who is a knife expert, but never gets to do anything but get out of the way. One or two scenes showing Kale kicking some ass would have given the movie more substance. I wanted to like the movie, but it was just nothing that special. Final Review: 2 stars out of 5; 5 1/2 out of 10; C+; thumbs down.

1. Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle will have a very difficult time topping the magic $100 million mark.

2. Looks like the Olsen Twins and Eve should keep their calendars open for the sequel as it looks like Cameron, Lucy, and Drew may get voted off the franchise.

3. Finding Nemo is now the number one movie of the year deservedly so.

4. At this point, I don't see anything being able to beat FN as being the best film of the year despite whatever Peter Jackson comes up with.

5. The Hulk is getting dogged for not making $200 million in 3 weeks, and that is not fair as it should be dogged for Ang Lee making a film that is less realistic than Shrek.

6. To most men, 28 Days Later has a totally different connotation if you are married or have a girlfriend.

7. I wonder what would happen if the rage infection from 28 Days Later ever got sprayed on the Hulk.

8. Italian Job gets the "Thing That Wouldn't Leave" award as it refuses to leave the top 10 list.

9. Bruce Almighty is now the most successful movie to co-star a "Friends" cast member that did not include David Arquette.

10. 2 Fast 2 Furious is about to make a very fast and furious exit out of the box office top ten list.

The thrills continue as Pirates of the Caribbean (is it Car-a-bee-anne or is it Ca-rib-bee-anne) and The League of Extraordinary Gentleman duel it out for the top spot. We shall see. Bye for now.