I am – Hercules!!

Based on Rolling Stone reporter Evan Wright’s acclaimed book about the earliest days of Operation Iraqi Freedom, “Generation Kill” is now a seven-episode miniseries from David Simon and Ed Burns, the writer-producers behind HBO’s “The Wire.” Its sprawling cast includes James Ransone (Ziggy Sobatka from “The Wire”), Lee Tergesen (Tobias Beecher from “Oz”) and Robert John Burke (the replacement Alex Murphy in “RoboCop 3”).

It’s a fast-moving, addictive series, difficult to switch off, it turns out, even when an unread copy of Quentin Tarantino’s hilarious and riveting (and thick) “Inglorious Bastards” beckons from a corner of one’s desk.

On the morning of 9/11 and the days that followed, I’m guessing a lot of Americans shared my angry fantasies of enlisting in the U.S. military to help mete out a little payback. “Kill” will make you pity plenty the lost kids who actually volunteered and wound up assigned to Iraq. The commanding officers who oversaw the initial effort are portrayed as self-serving, reckless and/or slow-witted. The show helps us imagine the hell of risking one’s life in such dismal conditions in the service of these jerks and halfwits.

The biggest annoyance this series indulges is its casting of too many talented actors who look too much like their talented castmates when wearing giant standard-issue helmets and chinstraps. Is that Bravo Platoon 2 leader Nate Fick talking in the shadows over there, or is it Team Leader Brad Colbert? Is that Alpha Company captain Bryan Patterson lurking about in the dust or dim Bravo Company captain Craig “Encino Man” Schwetje? You sometimes want to make like “The Office” manager Michael Scott and distinguish these lookalikes with a big felt-tip marker.

USA Today gives it four stars (out of four) and says:

… an honest, barely adorned, sometimes painfully vivid representation of life as we live it now. It's journalism converted to art, with both benefiting. …

Entertainment Weekly gives it an “A-minus” and says:

… one wild, cliché-busting trip.…

TV Guide says:

… riveting … The journey is often mordantly funny when it isn’t nerve-rackingly intense.…

Time Magazine says:

… combines bone-rattling action, lacerating drama and comedy as dark and dirty as a nighttime sandstorm. … As the stoic enigma and the hopped-up smart-ass speed through the desert landscape, you could almost take Kill for a surreal road comedy. The drama of this outstanding miniseries, and its horror, comes from knowing where that road leads.

The Wall Street Journal says:

… a work exceptional for its up-close view of these Marines (played by actors) and the action on the road to Baghdad. …

The New York Times says:

… bold, uncompromising and oddly diffident. It maintains impeccable dignity even as it tracks a group of shamelessly and engagingly profane, coarse and irreverent marines … “Generation Kill,” which has a superb cast and script, provides a searingly intense, clear-eyed look at the first stage of the war, and it is often gripping. But like a beautiful woman who swathes herself in concealing clothes and distracting hats, the series fights its own intrinsic allure. …

The Los Angeles Times says:

… although I am not informed enough to say how closely Simon and Burns' vision of the war resembles the real thing, I do know that it's all the unreal stuff -- the persuasiveness of the filmmaking, the grace of the acting -- that makes "Generation Kill" work as a TV show. …

The Chicago Tribune says:

… as addictive and absorbing, in its own way, as “The Wire.” Both programs stick around in your brain long after the credits roll. Both shows are deeply compassionate toward people on the front lines of complicated conflicts, and make you think hard about difficult questions that it would be more convenient to ignore. …

The Washington Post says:

… grippingly powerful … The point here also seems to be that war is stupid, this one more so than many others, and that the higher one goes in the hierarchy of command, the stupider the commanders tend to be. …

The San Francisco Chronicle says:

… less a war movie than a character study of a motley assemblage of soldiers and their commanding officers. The dialogue and scenes are constantly riveting. …

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says:

… stark, often profane and utterly believable …

The Miami Herald says:

… With a cast of outstanding if mostly unknown actors, it offers an unapologetic grunt's-eye view of the military, in which a brass hat is less a symbol of authority than an indelible mark of stupidity, cupidity or both. …

The Orlando Sentinel says:

… Vivid storytelling, superb acting and a frank approach make this a TV landmark. …

The Boston Globe says:

… remarkable … Laser-lit and sand-blasted, "Generation Kill" defines a new kind of hell. …

Variety says:

… HBO nails the target with "Generation Kill" -- a raw, gritty, so-real-you'll-forget-it's-drama miniseries … like the intractable drug war that Simon and company waged on "The Wire," it is, indeed, a sight to behold. …

The Hollywood Reporter says:

… an unsettling, distinctive, utterly riveting seven-part miniseries that captures the surrealistic nuts and bolts of launching a war better than any project in recent memory. …

Ain’t It Cool News says:

… If you want to step into the shoes of real-life killers fighting for their country, if you want to know how a soldier deals with killing the enemy and innocent civilians caught in the crossfire, if you want to see life unfold before your eyes in vivid exciting detail, check out the book and the show.

9 p.m. Sunday. HBO.

It Was $51.99 Last Week!!