A look inside Hollywood and the movies. : THE BRITISH PAGE : Kinda Like ‘Passage to India’ With Uzis?

Arnold Schwarzenegger did more than merely take America by storm this summer with “Terminator 2: Judgment Day.” After only six weeks, the movie is well on its way to beating the all-time British box-office record.

It’s already grossed $25.4 million (14.6 million), an astonishing figure by British standards, and one that makes it certain to beat the current record holder, “The Silence of the Lambs.”

Says George King, sales director for Guild, the British distributors of “Terminator 2”: “We’re ahead of ‘Silence of the Lambs’ after the same number of weeks, and I’m sure ‘Terminator 2’ will run for several weeks yet.”

Surprisingly many British critics, who tend to prefer more gentle, literate films, were impressed by the expensive hi-tech sci-fi fantasy. “Unbeatable entertainment . . . one of the great science-fiction films of all time,” raved Christopher Tookey of the Sunday Telegraph.

As for the film’s massive budget, “the money is all up there on the screen,” enthused the Observer’s Sean French, while Anthony Lane of the Independent notes that the movie “beckons the art of special effects into alarming and beautiful new territory.”

Iain Johnstone of the Sunday Times was in a dissenting minority. “I prefer films where the heroes feel doubt and anger and pain, and can actually bleed,” he grumbled.