By Dean Goodman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - "The Hulk" rampaged across North American movie theaters over the weekend, opening at No. 1 with estimated ticket sales of $62.6 million, its distributor, Universal Pictures, said on Sunday.

The latest Marvel comic book adaptation set a new record for a June release, breaking the $54 million three-day bow of "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me" in 1999.

However, the jolly green giant falls far behind that of Marvel stablemate "Spider-Man," which set a three-day opening record of $114.8 million last year. It also trails the most recent Marvel entry, "X2: X-Men United," which opened with $85.6 million last month. Among all films to open so far this year, "The Hulk" ranks at No. 5.

"It's interesting that we have created such high expectations that I get questions like, 'Are you disappointed with $62 million?"' Avi Arad, one of the film's producers, told Reuters,

On the contrary, Arad said he was thrilled with the opening, especially since the film is darker than most summer films, which tend to be unchallenging. The reviews were also "weird," he said, and the film suffered some negative buzz a few months ago when initial images of the computer-generated Hulk character were greeted with derision.

"People coming out of the movie didn't seem to have anything but high praises for what the creature ended up looking like, because they saw it for the first time in context, not just seeing a frozen picture of the Hulk," said Arad, who runs Marvel's studio operations.

'HUMORLESS' HULK

The movie, budgeted at about $150 million, was directed by Taiwanese filmmaker Ang Lee, who scored an international hit with his last project, "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon."

It stars Australian actor Eric Bana (news) as Bruce Banner, the mild-mannered scientist who mutates into a raging green beast when he's ticked off. Jennifer Connelly (news), Nick Nolte (news) and Sam Elliott (news) co-star.

Critics delivered such verdicts as "humorless" (Entertainment Weekly), "likable if tame" (Los Angeles Times), "messy" (New York Post) and "belabored" (Washington Post).

Universal Pictures, a unit of Vivendi Universal SA, partnered on the project with Marvel Studios, a unit of Marvel Enterprises Inc .

Arad said "Hulk" writer/producer James Schamus is working on a script for a sequel, and Bana is contracted to reprise his starring role.

Two other films opened in wide release, neither attracting much attention. Director Rob Reiner (news)'s romantic comedy "Alex & Emma," starring Kate Hudson (news) and Luke Wilson (news), opened at No. 7 with $6.2 million. It was released by Warner Bros. Pictures, a unit of AOL Time Warner Inc .

"From Justin to Kelly," a low-budget movie designed to capitalize on the popularity of the hit talent show "American Idol," opened at No. 11 with $2.9 million. It stars Kelly Clarkson (news) and Justin Guarini, the respective winner and runner-up of last year's first installment of the show. The film was released by Twentieth Century Fox, a unit of News Corp.'s Fox Entertainment Group Inc .

'NEMO' PASSES $200 MILLION

Last weekend's champion, the animated hit "Finding Nemo," fell to No. 2 with $20.5 million, which took its total to $228 million after four weekends. It was released by Walt Disney Co ., and produced by Pixar Animation Studios Inc .

The No. 3 slot went to Universal's street-racing drama "2 Fast 2 Furious" with $10.3 million. The studio's Jim Carrey (news) comedy "Bruce Almighty" was No. 4 with $10.0 million. Their respective totals rose to $102.1 million and $210.7 million.

The crime caper "The Italian Job" jumped two places to No. 5 with $7.3 million in its fourth weekend, taking its haul to $67.7 million. The film was released by Paramount Pictures, a unit of Viacom Inc .

1. The Hulk .......... $62,128,420

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $62,128,420

2. Finding Nemo .......... $21,138,752

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $228,549,216

3. 2 Fast 2 Furious .......... $11,099,835

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $102,889,130

4. Bruce Almighty .......... $9,806,060

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $210,542,710

5. The Italian Job .......... $7,165,943

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $67,635,452

6. Rugrats Go Wild! .......... $6,942,766

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $23,800,967

7. Alex and Emma WB .......... $6,111,074

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $6,111,074

8. Hollywood Homicide $5,930,260

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $21,562,893

9. Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd .......... $4,357,873

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $20,016,209

10. The Matrix: Reloaded .......... $3,942,492

BOX OFFICE SO FAR: $264,401,442

John L.: Hulk smash puny love stories. Hulk hate puny humans. Hulk best there is bub. With great gamma power come Hulk. Hulk angry. Hulk like being angry. Hulk get stronger angrier he gets. Ang Lee's (no relation to Stan) Hulk rampaged over all the competition and opened better than expected despite those who wish to compare it to Spiderman and X2. The movie has had negative press ever since its superbowl commercial earlier this year and it may have hurt its box office by a few insignificant millions. A full review is to follow. Alex and Emma was a little to bland to get much of an audience since its premise of a guy trying to write a book for two hours is not that exciting. Maybe they should have made the Dostoevsky story its based on to begin with. Kate Hudson had a minor hit with her earlier film this year, but this seems to be too much of the same. Luke Wilson also had a pretty good film in Old School that catered to the first weekend crowd, but he had very little to do with its success. Here, his monotone blahness is like garlic to a vampire, it just repels. He needs some charisma tips from his brother Owen. The saddest case of taking things a bit too far are those who greenlighted the production of From Justin to Kelly. American Idol's favorite "couple" are fun to watch on television, but their big screen debut seems to be a bust. Believe it or not, a full review of FJtK follows the Hulk one.

What is the deal with the purple pants? Who wears purple pants? Who has ever worn purple pants. Of all my years of reading the comics, watching the television shows, and now seeing the new movie, I have never understood why the pants are always purple. Plus the fact that unless they are physically removed, the pants never tear apart like Bruce Banner's shirts and shoes do every time he transform into the emerald beast. Like most comic book movies as of late, I am very familiar with the overall history of the character. I have not been blown away by a comic book movie since Superman in 1978, but the efforts being made now are much better than the straight to the junk heap versions of Captain America, The Fantastic Four, and Batman and Robin we got in the 1990s. No movie can duplicate 40 years of plot accumulated around the Hulk in a 2 and a half hour movie and this one doesn't really try as it veers off quite significantly from the source material. However, it does keep much of the essence of the characters. In fact, the Hulk in this movie is more of a mutant than a victim of errant gamma radiation. So, going into this movie forget most of what you have ever seen in the comic books and disregard the entire run of the Bill Bixby/Lou Ferrigno television series and start fresh. The plot of this movie starts in the mid 1960s where David Banner experiments on himself with a serum that would be used to heal wounds of soldiers in the battlefield almost instantly. This serum, however, seems to cause some mental instability in its subject causing David not to understand right from wrong. Do to the laws of genetics and reproduction, David's altered blood is transferred to his newborn son Bruce who seems to show odd behavior throughout his early years. He doesn't transform into a 20 foot tall creature, but he does growl a lot. After David's illegal activities are exposed, Bruce is sent away to be raised by another family and is told that he will never see his parents again. Bruce grows up and becomes a scientist who does military research that just happens to involve gamma rays. And as we all know just by the fact of the title, he eventually gets exposed to too much radiation and it turns him into the not so jolly green giant, Mr. Fixit, err I mean The Hulk whenever he gets angry, and as we all know, you wouldn't like him when he's angry. The above is the surface plot that sets up the big set pieces involving things being crushed and broken and thrown and smashed, and pounded, and growled at. The movie takes the mandatory 45 to 60 minutes to establish the characters before unleashing Hulk in all of its computer generated glory and this as always "angers" the general audience who just want to see stuff get busted up from beginning to end without any people to care about. The wait is necessary and well worth it as the special effects to create this character are pretty amazing. They are not perfect as Hulk gets a little bubbly and goofy looking, but when he is presented in full daylight, the Industrial Light and Magic guys get the job done. The same can't be said for some of the other CG creatures sent out to battle Hulk. Those effects were pretty bad and realism was not achieved in any way. In fact, the big battle between the Hulk and a super boss is so bad, I think Ang Lee realized it and shot it poorly so as not to expose its crappiness. It's an obligatory fight sequence that probably should have been cut out if a full effort was not used. Human interaction is key to help make you care about what happens and Lee tries but the actors don't always succeed in coming across as being into what they are doing. Eric Bana plays Bruce Banner, the tortured soul who could destroy a neighborhood if he ever stepped on a Lego in his bare feet. Bana is one of those Australian actors like Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce who can do a perfect American accent and sound odd in real life interviews. He portrays blandness very well to the extent that you really just want some one to kick him in the family jewels so we can get on with the destruction. He does what he can, but the camera cuts away too soon when he turns into the Hulk. The pain of the transformation is never properly displayed like it should have been. Also, he constantly says he likes it when he goes through the change and that lessens the audience's empathy for him. Jennifer Connelly is the love interest, Betty Ross. She is in love, I guess, with Bruce, but Connelly's acting style is so 1/2 note, I never could tell. Connelly is a gorgeous woman who I have loved for years, but she gives the same performance she gave in The Rocketeer. She has never been allowed or is incapable of raising her voice. How she won an Oscar is beyond me. She has the potential to be good, but she needs to emote more. Her voice can put you to sleep. Don't get me wrong, I still love her even though she's married with children, but I just wish she would give more of herself in her acting. Nick Nolte is daddy David as an older man. He tries to steal the picture with his crusty old guy acting style that has worked for him since Down and Out in Beverly Hills, and it does for the most part work here. Unfortunately, his character degenerates into a complete joke. Nolte is a bit above this material and is able to basically walk through his lines here, but still be effective. Sam Elliot is General "Thunderbolt" Ross, Betty's father and he is good in the role that in the comic was Hulk's J. Jonah Jameson. A constant thorn in his side. The Ross role is underwritten, but Elliot is able to bring out more than is on the screen with a nice subtle intensity. More time should have been given to that character. The only other performer of note is that of Josh Lucas as Talbot who is the true villain of the movie with no true good side that even Daddy David has. His one on one battle with the Hulk was my favorite fight. Lucas seemed to have a little fun being an ass. Ang Lee was an odd choice as a director as this is completely different from his other work like "Ice Storm" and "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." He imitates the comic book style of multiple panels and angles in a way that makes the movie look like old school Brian DePalma. He obviously wanted the movie to have a comic book feel in honor of the source material. He gives the regular people lots of screen time for the first half of the movie, and then suddenly it becomes the Hulk power hour as all of the character development is thrown out and balls out action is inserted. The emotions that would come from seeing a human being transform into the Hulk are forgotten, and it becomes an imitation 50s sci fi movie as the army tries to take out Mr. Purple Pants. The army battle with Hulk is one of the best action sequences of the year and should get a special award for its execution. That half hour of film is worth the price of admission. If Lee had stuck to his guns and added some more feeling to the second half, he would have had a stronger film. By giving up on it, it makes the viewer feel that what they just watched as build up was pointless. The movie may have just started with Bruce Banner in the lab getting exposed to the gamma rays and then immediately morph into Shrek's third cousin twice removed. Of course, that would suck. I liked the Hulk movie enough as it at least attempted to do something with the people before the mega action took over. The CGI on the Hulk is very good, but not excellent like the stuff done with Yoda in "Attack of the Clones" and Gollum in "The Two Towers," but it far surpasses Jar Jar and Dobby from Harry Potter. Look for a very very brief cameo of Stan Lee, the Hulk's creator, and Lou Ferrigno, ex TV Hulk, as two security guards. Final Review: 2 1/2 stars out of 5; 5 1/2 out of 10; B-; thumbs up.

Just when it looked like the live action musical was coming back after the well received Moulin Rouge and the Oscar winning "Chicago" were released, we are hit with what will probably be a top contender in next year's Razzie Awards, From Justin to Kelly. Now, let me clarify something here. That is the opinion of most people who would dare see this side project to the FOX Television phenomenon, "American Idol." I was able to tolerate the film because I am a big fan of the two leads, Justin Guarini and Kelly Clarkson. Well, I'm a big fan of Clarkson, and can understand Guarini's appeal. I have seen every episode of both seasons of American Idol and feel like I personally know them. When it was announced that this movie was going to be made, very very few people thought it would be a good idea. A year ago, the script had not even been thought of since the leads were still competing every week on television and the outcome was not as obvious. In fact, this movie could have been called From Kelly to Tamyra, but that's another story altogether. What is presented here in this film is what looks to be almost a satire of the Frankie and Annette Beach movies of the 1960s. After years of MTV Spring Break, MTV's the Real World, Girls Gone Wild, and this years "The Real Cancun," the innocence of From Justin to Kelly just seemed too clean without the edge needed to crossover beyond the hardcore 10 to 14 year old female demographic who called every week for two straight hours to get Justin and Kelly into the top two of American Idol. The plot of the movie is pretty simple as it takes place during Spring Break in Florida where Justin, the party entrepreneur meets Kelly, the wholesome Texas bar singer and the tribulations they go through to finally kiss each other. Several things cause this film to fail. Let's start with the obvious, rushed production. More time is spent on developing a Saturday Night Live 5 minute sketch than it took to put this together. Choppy editing, choppy story, stilted acting, bad lip synching, and an undercurrent of corporate greed to milk a franchise dry. The music chosen here is fine for the fans of generic pop rhythms and rhymes that on their own you might tap your feet too or even groove a bit, but in the context of trying to move a story along feel out of place. Characters will be walking around chatting about nothing in particular when out of the blue they start singing for no reason. That has been a common criticism of musicals in general as the reality of the random, perfectly choreographed song and dance routine is hard to swallow. The poor editing makes almost every performance abrupt and jarring. Most of the cast cannot sing, but Justin and Kelly have talent in that area and every so often it shows. Kelly is an excellent singer in real life and does fine here on that basis. If you had never seen her perform before and saw her for the first time here on screen, you might not see what the big deal is about her. Her reputation precedes her as a great singer, but her performance in the movie is quite restrained. There are hints of her greatness, but it never is allowed to develop. Justin is not that great a singer in real life, but he has a charisma that shows on screen that Kelly doesn't quite have. He could actually have a future in movies with a little more seasoning. Kelly is better when she sings than when she is hoping the onion will kick in before her crying take. Overall, Justin and Kelly do well for two people who were waiting tables a 15 months ago. They have a lot of support, sort of as their friends all get their own little storylines to fill up time between romantic boat rides with Justin and Kelly. The stand out is Katherine Bailess as Alexa. She actually carries the film as the villain trying to keep Justin and Kelly apart through nefarious cell phone text messaging schemes. Bailesss is even competent in her big solo dance number. Her acting is suspect, but I found myself booing every evil thing she did to keep our main lovebirds apart. The other characters are have their predictable romantic mishaps, but it all works out for the best one way or the other. As a theatrical film, From Justin to Kelly is just too slight to waste ones time. It should have been a television movie of the week on FOX and it would have been accepted better since the type of funk these guys roll with has long since been abandoned by the Mother Ship. What would have been cool is if some of the other top 10 finalists from American Idol's first season had been in the movie as Justin and Kelly's friends. Tamyra Gray and Nikki McKibbin were the 4th and 3rd place finishers respectfully and their presence could have brought in more of the American Idol audience. The promoters tried to stay away from calling this an American Idol movie, but if they had, they could have opened a little better I believe. From Justin to Kelly is a bad movie in the sense of meeting the criteria to suck. But, Mr. Guarini and Ms. Clarkson are pleasant enough to look at and seem to have a good time with their admitted limited acting ability. If you have never watched or cared about American Idol the television series, avoid at all costs. If you are fan, but not obsessed with the show, avoid it because it might taint your feelings for the leads in their other more worthy endeavors. If you actually took the time to vote during the shows run, then see the movie as it is cool to see how quickly two people can become famous. From Justin to Kelly is harmless and not worth the effort to trash. I personally enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Final Review: 1 1/2 stars out of 5; 4 out of 10; C-; thumbs down. Instead of seeing the movie, buy their albums and watch an old tape of the show. Then you might understand why a chance was taken to make a film like this. They are really very talented, honest.

1. Hulk hate fish with bad fin.

2. Hulk eat fish for Hulk's breakfast.

3. Hulk is faster and furiouser than puny humans and their puny cars.

4. Hulk is almighty not puny Bruce.

5. Hulk hate Italian food.

6. Rarrrrrrr, Hulk go wild, not puny Rugrats!

7. Hulk like Kate Hudson, but Hulk Smash puny Luke Wilson to little puny bits!

8. Hulk hates Hollywood, but Hulk love Nevada.

9. Hulk not dumber than dumberer er Hulk not dumberer than dumb... rarrrrrgggg!

10. Hulk smash Matrix while it reloads.

Next week is the return of Charlie's Angels in Full Throttle. The three main girls are back, but Bosley is now for some reason taking care of three bad kids he is always threatening to kill. Hmm. Bye for now.