“Cleopatra”

Sunday and Monday at 9 on WABC/Ch.7

ON the final jam-packed weekend of the May sweeps, “Cleopatra” rules.

And producer Robert Halmi Sr., who sank to “Ishtar” career levels with NBC’s “Noah’s Ark” two weeks ago, redeems himself in grand style.

“Cleopatra” is a classic epic. It is big, beautiful and expensive looking.

We might wish Leonor Varela were as much an actress as she is a beauty, but she is so gorgeous and exotic that we can almost overlook the fact that she 120 . 0011.08has a limited number of gestures at her command, which, at the oddest times, made us think more of Olivia Newton-John in “Grease” than Elizabeth Taylor in the most infamous of all “Cleopatras.”

Varela’s Cleo is lithe, bronzed and girly. A prom queen.

TimothyDalton is perfect as Caesar, Cleo’s first partner in 120 . 0017.04world-shaking lust, even if he does occasionally have dialogue that would make Henry Kissinger sound like Carrot Top.

During a nooner on the Nile, Cleo asks Caesar why he had first resisted her.

“Because I’m Roman,” he purrs. “Because I hate idleness. Because erotic sensuality is a kind of treason.”

Billy Zane follows in Caesar’s footsteps as Marc Antony (and in the footsteps of Richard Burton, having fallen in love off camera with Varela).

Both would find the conniving Octavius Caesar (Rupert Graves) no more than a foppish gnat were it not for Cleo having distracted them with her charms, which she dedicated first to making Egypt as independent as possible of the sweeping Roman Empire.

Octavius vanquishes both of Cleo’s lovers, but not before she picks up a sword in the heat of a losing battle and whacks off a Roman soldier’s you know whats.

By then, her fate is sealed. And it’s just a question of whether she’s got time to change into another gorgeous gown before she seals herself and her beloved into the tomb where the most famous snake outside the Garden of Eden awaits.

And the rest is hissssstory.