There’s a line in Kevin Smith’s “Dogma” that refers to Americans as thinking nothing is important unless they’ve made a movie about it.

Two things about the Cuban Missile Crisis: It is important, and they did make a movie about it. It’s called “Thirteen Days,” and it does well in its role as a large history book with a tense score.

“Thirteen Days” attempts to recreate the events during October 1962 when the world thought it was on the brink of World War III. Those who were there may be jolted just being reminded of the fear and anxiety the country went through. The rest of us can get by with American history lectures.

In the film, one gets chills as spy planes discover Soviet missiles in Cuba and shivers as Adlai Stevenson holds the floor at the United Nations.

Two weeks are conveniently made compact and movie-sized, and incidental music tells us when to be worried.

It’s all very good for those who want to put some of the excitement back into history that boring textbooks have taken away. Director Roger Donaldson (”Cocktail,” “No Way Out”) does a fine job of creating a presidential-feeling White House. President Kennedy, solidly played by Bruce Greenwood, looks like an image lifted right out of the historical paintings. Greenwood plays Kennedy with a confidence and youthful swagger that’s decidedly not “The West Wing.”

There’s also an adequate amount of tension for a two and a half-hour movie - that is, for anyone still unsure of how the situation turns out. The movie’s tagline states: “You’ll never believe how close we came.” The problem is, it’s not that hard to imagine, much less read about, how close we came.

So the audience is left with an excitement that builds, then fizzles out, only to be built up again. “Thirteen Days” never attempts to go beyond the usual historical epic fare of long speech, followed by close-up of actor, followed by stack footage.

Kevin Costner, ever the historical-epic star, lays on the Boston accent as Kenneth O’Donnell, political adviser to the Kennedys during the crisis. Some historians have already been up in arms over portrayal of O’Donnell. Word has it he didn’t play nearly as big a part as the movie says he does.

But Costner merely serves as a liaison for the other, more important, figures to interact. And he does so in typical Costner fashion: Woodenly.

At one point in the film, O’ Donnell’s son asks, “Is there going to be a war, Dad?” Too bad we already know the answer to that, and seeing “Thirteen Days” certainly won’t add much to the experience.