Review: Benedict Cumberbatch's long-shelved Thomas Edison movie is as dull as it sounds

In the late 19th century, two prolific inventors competed to make widespread, cost-effective electrical systems to power the United States.

If you didn't fall asleep just reading that sentence, congratulations! Your attention span is far better than ours, which is still preoccupied with "Rise and Shine" memes and C-3PO's potentially imminent death.

You might also be the target audience for costume drama "The Current War" (★? out of four; rated PG-13; in theaters nationwide Friday), which is destined to become a staple among substitute history teachers who just can't sit through another Ken Burns documentary this semester.

The movie details the "war of the currents" – shocking, right? – between Thomas Edison (Benedict Cumberbatch), riding high on his light-bulb patent in 1880, and rival George Westinghouse (Michael Shannon), then looking to break into the electricity game after inventing railroad air brakes. Westinghouse teams up with Serbia-born engineer Nikola Tesla (Nicholas Hoult), whose alternating current (AC) is a cheaper, more efficient alternative to Edison's direct current (DC), which only travels in one direction and isn't easily converted to higher or lower voltages.

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Westinghouse's company soon gets a leg up on Edison as more American cities start implementing Tesla's technology, culminating in a climactic bidding war with General Electric over whether to light the 1893 Chicago World's Fair using AC or DC currents.

It's all mind-numbingly dull, and critics have exhausted every electrical pun known to man in saying that "Current War" "lacks spark." (The one-time Oscar hopeful was ravaged by critics when it premiered at Toronto International Film Festival in 2017, where it was called "torpidly slow" by IndieWire in a D-grade review, and "an uninvolving bore" by The Hollywood Reporter.)

There was dim hope that the drama could be salvaged after it was pulled from its original theatrical release in December 2017, amid sexual assault allegations against producer Harvey Weinstein. (When the scandal erupted that fall, Weinstein claimed to be too busy reediting "Current War" to comment on accusations.) The film bounced between distributors after The Weinstein Company shuttered and was eventually acquired by 101 Studios for release under a revised title: "The Current War: Director's Cut."

The pretentious new name suggests a complete overhaul of the original movie. But in reality, its 1 hour, 41 minute run time is just six minutes shorter than what screened for critics in Toronto. (The Film Stage notes a "slight increase" in screen time for Hoult's character in director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon's updated version, but otherwise says they're "narratively identical" with some "effective pacing tweaks.")

But minor changes aren't enough to save such an aggressively uninteresting script, which mostly wastes its Oscar-nominated stars. (Although Cumberbatch's straight-faced delivery is awards-worthy in itself, shouting lines like, "HOW DID HE GET THE BULBS?! What deafening silence from the brightest minds in America!")

The presence of Tom Holland as Edison's assistant Samuel Insull makes Cumberbatch's scenes that much harder to watch, as the Marvel co-stars earnestly fumble through stilted dialogue. By the time Edison laughably declares that "the future's not going to be paved with bricks, but with copper," you'll wish that Spider-Man and Doctor Strange could come save the actors from this blown fuse of a film.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Benedict Cumberbatch's 'The Current War' is anything but electric