Grade: B-

Verdict: A swift epic with decent acting and acceptable fight scenes.

By BOB LONGINO
Cox News Service

"Troy" is a biggie-size Hollywood movie, the kind where you can imagine director Wolfgang Petersen high up outdoors on scaffolding, hoisting his megaphone and shouting, "Bring me more boats!"

There are endless shiploads of warriors, kabillions of fellas pokin' at each other with spears, and mounds of dead guys. Make that mountains of dead guys. But the movie will probably be best remembered as a bona fide summer pec-tacular.

Vanity, thy name is "Troy."

Long before he even speaks, Brad Pitt flashes his newly sculpted Greek bod. Eric Bana proudly sticks out his ample Trojan man boobs. And Orlando Bloom, the skinny elf with the mean arrows in "The Lord of the Rings" movies, has beefed up, too. He strikes a see-me-topless bedside pose that even B-movie Hercules Steve Reeves rarely dared.

"Troy," which cost upwards of $185 million to make, is gargantuan and long (just 17 minutes shy of three hours). In the wake of the loud critical discomfort over the misfiring "Van Helsing," "Troy" also seems to be a better movie than it probably really is.

This is Homer's "The Iliad" and its mythological tale of ancient Greece versus Troy and a big wooden horse, wrapped up in undiluted Hollywood hogwash. It's a watchable story, especially the battles, set in 1193 B.C., but one fashioned as a smackdown that the Rock would appreciate.

A word to the wise: Students need not be eager to use the film as a substitute "ÔThe Iliad' For Dummies." The script alters the fate of many characters and reduces the 10-year war to, well, Hollywood time.

There are at least two must-see scenes: Pitt as Achilles delivering the swiftest and coolest death blow you've ever seen, and Pitt's mano-a-mano battle with Bana as Hector in front of the gates of Troy. Like water fired to a raging boil, their fight, choreographed to drum beats, slowly gains in intensity.

You want a lesson in the use of those weirdly shaped fighting shields of old? Watch Pitt's Achilles. He takes names with his.

"Troy" has the characters from "The Iliad" and a lot of the story. The Trojan prince Paris (played by Bloom) plays footsie with the Greek (and spoken for) beauty Helen (the virtually unknown German actress Diane Kruger). He steals her away from Greece to Troy. That, of course, angers her husband, Menelaus (Brendan Gleeson), who urges the land-hungry Greek king Agamemnon (Brian Cox) to summon invaders to go get her back.

Old-line Hollywood bluebloods Peter O'Toole (a scene-stealer, he's got the movie's best dialogue exchange with Pitt late in the film) and Julie Christie (too briefly seen) round out the cast as Troy's King Priam and Achilles' mother, Thetis.

Moviegoers will see similarities between "Troy" and other big battle epics, such as "Gladiator," "Saving Private Ryan" (the beach landing) and "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy (especially the sieges at Helms Deep and Minas Tirith).

Trouble is, "Troy" is probably only half as good as those other movies.

First off, most of the music, scored by Oscar winner James Horner, simply blows. It's strictly B-movie fare that sounds like Horner phoned it in after Petersen nixed other music prepared by Gabriel Yared that was deemed old-fashioned.

The sets, while massive, are less detailed and far less interesting than the stylized showmanship displayed in "Gladiator" and the otherworldliness of "LOTR."

While the film plays loose with the original story, the script is Hollywood-studio efficient, a kind of "No Fear Shakespeare." Odysseus (Sean Bean) sets the tone when he says, "This war will never be forgotten, nor the heroes who fight in it."

Pitt's got the quirkiest line, name-calling an offender a "sack of wine!"

Still, while the movie may not be deeply moving, it never lacks for speed or clarity.

And, for sure, it's got plenty of boats.