The Current War

I saw a trailer for The Current War several years ago and I immediately wanted to see it because Bennedict Cumberbatch in a period drama is pretty much everything.  Then I never heard anything more about it until I saw it on the Salt Lake Film Society website under the Coming Soon tab a few weeks ago.  I've been counting down to this weekend ever since!  Inventor Thomas Edison (Cumberbatch) is interested in bringing electricity to power his light bulbs to the common man.  He decides that Direct Current (DC) is the best way to power the country but it has a limited range requiring generators to be built close together with expensive copper tubing buried underground connecting them.  Businessman George Westinghouse (Michael Shannon) decides to try Alternating Current (AC) because it can work over longer distances with transformers and overhead power lines, making it significantly cheaper.  However, Edison believes that AC is dangerous and tries to discredit Westinghouse, with a subplot involving the creation of the electric chair, in their competition to get cities around the country to their systems.  There is another subplot involving Nikola Tesla (Nicholas Hoult), a brilliant inventor who is unable capitalize on his inventions because he lacks funding, who works for Edison but ultimately joins forces with Westinghouse.  Eventually, both Edison and Westinghouse submit competing bids to power the Chicago World's Fair in 1893 and thereby receive invaluable publicity.  This movie looks beautiful with interesting camera angles, incandescent lighting, and gorgeous period costumes.  Cumberbatch is perfect as the disheveled, distracted, and dismissive genius (he excels at this kind of role) who wants to win at any cost.  Shannon is charismatic as the businessman who wants to succeed on his own merit rather than resorting to mudslinging.  However, the story is quite jumbled with lots of short and choppy scenes and I sometimes found it difficult to follow what was going on.  The story is also not quite as compelling as it could have been.  I was a bit disappointed that there wasn't more focus on Tesla because I have always been fascinated with him.  This isn't a bad movie but it didn't live up to my expectations so I recommend waiting until it is available to stream.