THE CURRENT WAR (12A)

Power struggle: Michael Shannon, left, and Benedict Cumberbatch play rivals Westinghouse and Edison

The two men trade verbal blows as their respective businesses duel for supremacy and Nikola Tesla (Nicholas Hoult) joins Edison’s team of bright young things.

As Edison loses ground on Westinghouse, he takes a calculated decision to link alternating current with the first electric chair, connecting his rival in the public’s mind with the “barbaric” practice of taking a human life.

Cumberbatch and Shannon are powerless to plug us into their flawed, emotionally complex characters and Tuppence Middleton and Katherine Waterston are largely wasted as the rivals’ supportive spouses.

Texan filmmaker Gomez-Rejon is determined to energise this dull history lesson with flash camerawork, but that cannot make up for the shortcomings of the script. DIRECTOR Alfonso GomezRejon’s turgid period drama tries to illuminate the hardfought battle of words and copper wires between Thomas Edison and entrepreneur George Westinghouse in the late 19th-century.

The year is 1880 and Thomas Edison (Benedict Cumberbatch) is poised to light up a section of New York with his electrical system, aided by personal secretary Samuel Insull (Tom Holland).

Edison’s reliance on direct current makes it expensive and businessman George Westinghouse (Michael Shannon) senses an opportunity. He believes an alternating current system could be cheaper and more efficient.