By Dean Goodman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Zoinks!! "Scooby-Doo" was no dog at the North American box office.

In one of the biggest surprises of a red-hot summer movie season, the feature version of the vintage cartoon TV series bow-wowed at No. 1 with a $56.4 million weekend haul, according to studio estimates issued on Sunday. The producers of the Warner Bros. release said they would have been happy with an opening in the mid-$30 million range.

"Scooby-Doo" ranks as the biggest June opener in history, surpassing the three-year-old record of "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me" ($54.9 million). It is also the third biggest opening of 2002, behind "Spider-Man" ($114.8 million) and "Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones" ($80 million).

The film, headlined by Freddie Prinze, Jr., his fiancee Sarah Michelle Gellar and Matthew Lillard, cost about $80 million to make, with a quarter of that spent on the computer-animated titular pooch.

The Ben Affleck nuclear thriller "The Sum of All Fears" (Paramount), which had ruled the box office the last two weekends, slipped to No. 4 with $13.5 million for the Friday-to-Sunday period. Its 17-day total is $84.5 million.

In between, were two other debuts, both delayed by almost a year. The Matt Damon spy thriller "The Bourne Identity" (Universal) opened at No. 2 with a strapping $27.5 million; and Nicolas Cage's WWII drama "Windtalkers" (MGM) earned a disappointing $14.5 million, the latest in a string of flops at billionaire Kirk Kerkorian's studio. "Bourne" reportedly cost $60 million and "Windtalkers" upwards of $120 million.

BOFFO BOX OFFICE

On the plus side, "Scooby-Doo" propelled the box office to its strongest level in four weeks. The top 12 films grossed $160 million, up 55 percent from last weekend, and up 25 percent from the year-ago weekend, according to tracking firm Exhibitor Relations.

Warner Bros. distribution president Dan Fellman said industrywide year-to-date sales were up 25 percent from last year, and the box office was on track to reach $10 billion this year, up from 2001's record $9 billion.

Fellman's studio, a unit of AOL Time Warner Inc., accounted for 43 percent of this weekend's receipts, with assists from "The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood" at No. 5 ($9.8 million) and "Insomnia" at No. 11 ($3.7 million).

A "Scooby-Doo" sequel is in the works for 2004, said Fellman; producer Charles Roven, who developed the project through his Mosaic Media banner, said he was still waiting for an official announcement from the studio.

The movie's appeal is multi-generational, said Roven, who noted that the Hanna-Barbera stoner classic has enjoyed a virtually uninterrupted run on TV over three decades.

While Prinze has said its attraction boils down to a talking dog, Roven said it goes deeper than that: audiences can relate to its "scared heroes" as they solve paranormal mysteries. Raja Gosnell directed the film, which also starred Linda Cardellini.

'BOURNE' BUOYANT

"The Bourne Identity," in which Damon plays an amnesiac hitman, was first slated to open nine months ago. It was held up by a turbulent production that pitted director Doug Liman ("Swingers") against Universal on his first studio shoot.

Opening the "fresh and hip" thriller in a competitive summer slot was a risky proposition that paid off, said Nikki Rocco, distribution president at the Vivendi Universal SA -owned studio. On the other hand director John Woo's "Windtalkers, originally scheduled for a June 2001 release, opened below expectations. "It clearly didn't perform quite at the level we had hoped for," said Robert Levin, president of marketing and distribution at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. .

He declined to specify what the studio had hoped for.

MGM has suffered a disappointing eight months, with such pictures as "Bandits," "Rollerball" and "Hart's War." Cage was last in theaters with "Captain Corelli's Mandolin," another war drama that bombed.

New releases next weekend include the sports comedy "Juwanna Mann," the cartoon "Lilo & Stitch" and the Tom Cruise thriller "Minority Report."

Paramount Pictures, the distributor of "The Sum of All Fears," is owned by Viacom Inc .

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Following are the final data for the top 10 movies at the North American box office during the June 14-16 weekend, according to studio figures released Monday by Exhibitor Relations Co. Inc.

Film Three-day Cumulative

Title Gross Gross

1. Scooby-Doo .......... $54,155,312

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $54,155,312

2. The Bourne Identity .......... $27,118,640

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $27,118,640

3. Windtalkers .......... $14,520,112

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $14,520,412

4. The Sum of All Fears .......... $13,456,325

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $84,470,597

5. Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones .......... $ 9,438,607

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $270,752,477

6. Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood .......... $8,874,585

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $34,000,024

7. Spider-Man .......... $7,515,984

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $382,537,669

8. Bad Company .......... $5,872,984

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $21,584,029

9. Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron .......... $5,223,491

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $63,496,649

10. Undercover Brother .......... $4,424,295

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $31,353,150

Reuters/Variety

John L.:  Rooby Rooby Roo! Zoinks!  Jinkies!  I would have gotten this box office report updated sooner if it wasn't for those meddling kids and their stupid dog.  One of the most popular cartoons ever made has become a huge hit with the public.  Many thought it was a dumb idea to make a live action version of this Hanna-Barbera classic, but it is turning out to be very popular investment.  Full review coming up.  The third secret agent movie in 3 weeks has been released with the Matt Damon action opus.  Damon's movie did not open as well as his buddy Affleck's, but Bourne looks to be Damons first big hit where he is the main star since Goodwill Hunting.  The surprise of the week to me is the relatively low box office for Windtalkers.  The story of the Navajo World War II code talkers is an important one that very few people even know about unless they watched the third and fourth seasons of The X-Files.  I saw all three of these films this week, and what follows are my full reviews.

SCOOBY-DOO - FULL REVIEW

I have not sat through an entire Scooby Doo cartoon since the 1980s, but I have fond memories of the show.  Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy, and Rooby Rooby Roo were fun characters to see run around.  Fred was the leader, Velma the brains, Daphne the bait, Shaggy the goofball, and Rooby Roo the hero.  The formula of these 4 people and a canine has been successful for over 30 years, and with its multigenerational fan base, a live action version seemed inevitable.  It took so long because I don't think the filmmakers could figure out the best way to have the dog act like he does on the tv show.  Scooby can talk, run on his hind legs, and dress up in different outfits.  Doing that on a real dog would have been  real difficult, so they went with the computer generated imaging to create a Jar Jar Binks like character.  In a video game, the CGI Scooby would look really good, but in this movie it looks like they have a 3D hologram of a dog running around with them and not a real pet.  Scooby sort of glows and is just too bright to look real.  For the average kid and adult who just go to see movies for entertainment and don't watch every making of special, Scooby looks just fine.  If you are always critical of things like this then avoid seeing the movie, it will only distract you.  I get annoyed by bad special effects and it bothered me more in the movie trailers than it does when it is fully played out on screen.  As soon as you hear Scoob talk, you forget that it is a special effect.  So, the filmmakers got the most important part of the movie right, and that was the dog.  If a sequel is made the effect will most likely be better, but as a first effort, it is just fine.  Before I get to the characterizations, let me go over other key Scooby Doo Where Are You gimmicks that had to be in the film to make it acceptable to long term fans.  The number one thing that had to be in the movie was the unmasking of a ghost with the trademark "I would have gotten away with it too if it wasn't for those kids and their dog" moment.  It happens in the first 15 minutes of the movie during the Scooby Gang's opening side adventure that has nothing to do with the plot much like the beginning of many James Bond movies.  The other thing that has to be there are the elaborate Rue Goldberg like traps that never work but somehow still catch the ghost.  That bit is there and is done very similarly to the cartoon with some extra modern twists.  There is a celebrity guest star that helps with the mystery, Velma loses her glasses, and Scooby Snacks are consumed on a regular basis.  Homages to old episodes to the cartoon are thrown in their like why was there that period of time when the tv show only had Shaggy and Scooby solving the mysteries?  The casting for the movie is pretty good, but not perfect.  Freddie Prinze Jr. plays Fred coincidentally, and is fine, but he does not try to impersonate the character.  He just plays the part like he does all of his other movies which is sort of dull, but Fred the cartoon version is dull.  Sarah Michelle Gellar makes a good Daphne physically, but she too sounds more like her Kendall Hart character from All My Children than the object of affection of 10 year old Scooby Doo fans.  The problem is that Daphne and Fred the cartoon, do not have distinct enough voices to give Prinze and Gellar a chance to act like them.  Prinze suffers the most, but at least Gellar gets to break out her Buffy the Vampire moveset to compensate.  My favorite is Linda Cardellini as Velma.  She wears the exact outfit from the show and even tries to sound like the character down to use of "jinkies" as a response to everything that is supernatural.  The only problem with Linda is that she is too attractive to play Velma as the plain girl brain.  Fortunately, it really isn't a problem.  Matthew Lillard looks to have been born to play Shaggy.  He must have studied lots of tape of Casey Casem, who did the original voice, on the Weekly Top 40 radio show.  There is one of those before the movie slide show movie fact bits where they say Lillard shouted as loud as he could before certain takes so he could get the raspy voice to sound good.  It eventually gave him laryngitis.  Lillard also interacts very well with Scooby and it actually looks like he is talking to a character.  I am glad that the movie did not try to be too salacious with the material.  Over the last 12 years or so it has been cool to goof on the Scooby Gang.  "Wayne's World" did it with their Scooby Doo ending which may have started the Scooby revival, the main cast of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is called the Scooby Gang, and in last year's "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" there is a very odd scene where Jay and Bob meet up with Mystery Inc.  There are rumors and some confirmation that this movie would have a harder edge to it with Velma and Daphne kissing each other, more blatant Shaggy is high on pot references, and Velma giving Daphne second looks when she bends over to pick something up.   There is some of that in the movie, but it is not as obvious.  You see smoke coming out of the Mystery Van and think that Shaggy is toking it, but he is just cooking regular food.  Fred sort of has the hots for Daphne, but it is not explored beyond a single innocent "thank goodness we made it" type of kiss.  Velma is not portrayed as a lesbian unless you think her general look is sort of dykish.  The only blatant moment is when Shaggy meets a girl named Mary Jane and he says that that is his favorite name.  Of course, Mary Jane is another name for marijuana, ha ha ha ha... cough cough.  Scooby Doo is too popular with children to make the movie appeal to the dirty minded adults who grew up watching it and now realize what was really going on behind the scenes.  This is not South Park, and PG rating is just fine for it.  Overall, Scooby Doo is a fun movie and pretty harmless.  I would like to see a sequel with better Scooby special effects.  If you are a fan of the cartoon, definitely see it, but if not, you won't understand what the big deal is.  I'm a fan, so I riked it, I mean liked it.  Final Review:  2 1/2 stars out of 5; 6 out of 10; B; thumbs up.  

THE BOURNE IDENTITY - FULL REVIEW

I forgot what I was going to write down.  I find myself sitting in front of my laptop looking at a screen that says "The Bourne Identity  - Full Review," and I don't know why.  Is this supposed to be a movie, a book, a song, or a video game?  There must be a reason that my fingers are now acting independently from my conscious thought and is typing these words.  I know what to write as if it is by instinct and not will.  The internet is a word that keeps coming to mind so I go on it and look up Bourne Identity.  Robert Ludlum's name comes up as some sort of co-conspirator.  Oh, he's the author of a novel called The Bourne Identity as well as an Ultimatum and Supremacy version.  It seems that Bourne is someone named Jason Bourne who has no idea who he is.  That seems to be the only thing he does not know since martial arts, mastery of weapons, and knowing several foreign languages comes naturally to him.  More investigation shows that some actor named Matt Damon is portraying Bourne in the movie, The Bourne Identity.  Why do I think of barbecue sauce when I see that guy's name?  The plot is about a man who has just been shot in the back being fished out of the Mediterranean Sea trying to figure out why whenever someone touches his arm he gets the urge to break it.  It is starting to come back to me now.  This is one of the movies I saw and I am supposed to write a review of it, but I am having trouble remembering what occurred.  It is as if I blacked it out of my mind.  Bits and pieces show up in my mind like bullet holes in backs, bag of money, gun fights, fist fights, yelling, kissing, running, driving, running, driving, running, driving, jumping, falling, and blood.  These thoughts are all jumbled up and don't seem to come together in any coherent way.  Oh wait, I see a girl is with Damon.  I barely remember her, but she is called Marie in the movie, and Franka Potente in real life.  Someone must have thought they were having a boy and when a girl was born decided to keep the chosen name anyway.  Other unknown actors pop up and wreck havoc on our protagonists, but they all sort of jumble together.  Not only does one not really get to know who Jason Bourne is or was, we never get to know much about the other characters beyond their surface motivations.  The ineptness of the United States Government in dealing with their spy network is making a lot of headlines in the newspapers, and this movie does not make anyone anymore confident.  There are no clear enemies in this movie as all sides seem unethical and corrupt.  In fact, there is a scene that comes to mind where a supposed bad guy is going to be killed, but he is holding his daughter and the assassin hesitates.  So, who is the bad guy here?  Action scenes are plentiful, but they tend to repeat themselves or other better movies.  Amnesia is a clichéd plot device that rarely plays out well.  Damon wanders around the whole movie not understanding a thing that is going on while the audience knows how this thing plays out about 10 minutes in.  There is no twist in how things resolve themselves.  The answers are given to you constantly.  Bourne was a spy or some sort who gets shot during a failed mission.  Bourne loses his memory and finds out that he was a spy who was shot during a failed mission.  There is a little more to it than that, but that is basically what happens without giving away what passes for a plot.  What saves the movie from being a disaster is that the actors are good and the action sequences taken as just being action sequences are well done.  The movie is constantly moving and exciting to watch.  It is just too predictable.  My own memory has returned and I realize that I did sit through this movie.  Remembering it a half hour later has been difficult.  Worth a look, but nothing special.  Final Review:  2 1/2 stars out of 5; 6 1/2 out of 10; B-; thumbs up.

WINDTALKERS - FULL REVIEW

Windtalkers tells the tale of how the United States Army fooled the Japanese by turning the native language of the Navajo tribe into a military code.  The Navajo's tongue is so unique that not even the odd sounding Japanese could figure it out.  This movie is being portrayed as some noble story that never gets told in the schools during history class, but it is just another example of the racism that ran rampant during the time period.  Native Americans are the most tortured race in this country, even more than black people.  There were federal laws made to wipe out many of these tribes causing the deaths of many people.  In fact, I would like someone to tell me what do you call the race of Native American's in this country.  Whites are Caucasian, Blacks are Negroid, and Yellows (I guess) are Asian or in some cases called mongoloid.   But the red man has no specific racial designation.  Native American is a stupid identification since anyone born in North America regardless of race qualifies there.  The Indian name comes from the fact that Columbus was lost and thought he landed in India.  There has to be one, but no one and no book I have ever read has told me what it is.  It is very sad that the Indians (for lack of a better term) have had their identities wiped out by the evil pale faces.  Their culture is ridiculed to the extent that if you ask an Indian about the war paint, feather headdresses, and teepees, they goof on you and say that you are stereotyping when in fact it IS part of their culture and is not a goof.  They don't wear it all the time, and most now don't ever, but it is a cultural thing that is interesting to learn about.  This attitude led to the U. S. Government taking advantage of the Navajos to win the war.  Overall, a good idea, but in execution, these men who trained as soldiers while at the same time trained to deliver emergency codes to the military bases were treated as second class citizens.  It just saddens me that when World War II started the United States government could not get their act together and realize that its racist practices were hypocritical to the war they were fighting against tyranny.  This movie, ignores some of the deeper questions and controversies, and is pretty much just as is.  The Navajos are presented as noble people, while the soldiers are presented as idiots who think these people are beneath them even though without them they would have no chance for survival.  As with all movies about Native American Indians, the stars are the white people.  Nicholas Cage stars as a World War II Marine who must protect the Navajo code talker during battle, and if it looks like the code talker will be captured by the Japanese, he is to kill the Indian to protect the code.  This presents an ethical conflict that rears its ugly head a couple of times.  Adam Beach plays the lead code talker who works with Cage.  He is very good as the soldier wanting to do his duty for his country even though there are many people who don't think he and his people are smart enough to do it.  Beach's Ben Yahzee character is very good and is developed pretty well from a wide eyed Marine to a scared crapless Private, to a gung ho kill everything in his path Rambo.  Unfortunately there is more time spent on Cage's alcoholism and his non affair with a nurse than with how the Navajo code was put together.  Cage's star power sort of over shadows the story and takes away from what Yahzee and his friend Whitehorse played by Roger Willie are doing when they transmit location codes.  Speaking of Willie, he is the best character in the film even though he has a smaller role than the others.  His interactions with Christian Slater who is the one in charge of protecting Whitehorse are the more intersting moments in the film.  They could have done the whole movie around those two, but I guess they aren't big enough to carry a whole film.  Slater plays Sergeant Henderson who is against the kill the code talker order and becomes very friendly with Whitehorse.  Slater and Willie's chemistry is much better than that of Cage and Beach.  The main parts of the movie are its several battle sequences.  The main attacks occur on the Japanese island of Saipan and they are very violent with limbs being blown off and people being burned to a crisp.  John Woo, the director films these sequences very well, but as is with most war movies, we only see the one side.  The Japanese are shown a couple times not understanding the American codes they intercept and then the rest of the movie they are being shot to death and blown up.  No attempt is made to understand any of the Japanese in this film.  They are just faceless villains that all look alike. John Woo is Chinese, so it is understandable why he has no love for the Japanese.  He does not make them look good at all.  That's what you deserve though when you sneak attack a country, no film love.  The real life dilemma of whether you should kill the code talker is not really a problem.  If there is no hope of rescue, then you would have had to kill the Navajo.  That should have been explained to the Navajos when they enlisted, but I guess the Marines were afraid no one would accept the mission.  However, not telling them the truth doesn't help either as it is shown in this movie.  Windtalkers is better than average when it comes to World War II movies, but it is not as great as it thinks it is.  More focus on the Navajos and their lives would have been more interesting than seeing another drunk Nicholas Cage performance.  A stronger script, and Beach had a chance of being nominated for an Oscar next year, but with the lack of depth to his character he may not get that big break.  But, I won't be surprised if he is stuck in the Best Supporting Actor category next year.  Windtalkers was supposed to be released a year ago, but got pushed back to the Winter, but then the world changed and it was released now.  There is no reason why this movie should not have been released on time if it was finished.  It is more appropriate now than it was a year ago.  These soldiers from World War II were mostly scared teenagers not knowing what the heck they were up against.  They had their own prejudices and heartache, but when it was over they got the job done.  The Navajos are as American as anybody else born in the United States and they represented themselves quite well.  Their funny little language helped win a war that could have gone the other way without their help.  They proved to be genuine heroes.  You get a taste of their heroic efforts here, but I recommend reading a book or a real documentary or even watching some of the code talker episodes of X-Files to get more on this story.  Let Windtalkers be your foreword to the greater tale.  Final Review:  3 stars out of 5; 7 out of 10; B; thumbs up.  If it was Windatalkers starring Michael Beach and Roger Willie, it would have probably gotten a have a point higher rating from me.

REST OF THE TOP 10 IN 10:

1.    Look for Jack Ryan to go after Jason Bourne in the ultimate movie crossover.

2.    Ben Affleck and Matt Damon can go one on one in a steel cage ladder match to see who the best super spy is with Pierce Brosnan as the special guest referee.

3.    Star Wars is still hanging in there by the edge of it's light saber, but it will soon leave the top 10 at its current rate.

4.    The reason Episode II is going to make at least a $100 million less than Episode I is because the movie makes no sense whatsover if you have not seen the movie before it and the movies that are supposed to take place later causing newbies to just ignore the film or just see it once.

5.    The Ya Yas continue to baffle men all over America with its modest success.

6.    Spiderman is looking for a villain to fight in the sequel to come out in 2004.

7.    Hopefully it will be more like Dr. Octopus and not the infamous Hypno Hustler from Spectacular Spiderman #24 back in the 1970s.

8.    Chris Rock said in an interview on the Howard Stern Show that Bad Company is his make or break film, so I guess Chris Rock is now broke.

9.    The Spirits may not have been too kind to the filmmakers at the box office, but on the bright side there is a great chance that it will be in the running for being one of the top 5 animated movies of the year so it can be nominated for the Best Animated Picture Oscar.

10.    Undercover Brother was very funny, but it seems that it's success will have to wait for the video release since not as many people are giving it a chance as many had hoped.

Next week I have a full review of Minority Report.  In the future we will be able to predict when a murder will happen and stop that person before they commit it.  So if they are stopped, can you still convict them since they haven't done anything?  I guess it would qualify as attempted murder then.  Lilo and Stitch is the new Disney animated film and it looks very odd.  The one movie I have little interest in seeing the Tootsie remake known as Juwanna Man.  The WNBA is hard enough to watch now with women let alone letting a cross dressing man play.  Should be an interesting weekend.  Bye for now.