After two years of delay - the result of a lack of enthusiasm at its 2017 Toronto International Film Festival premiere and then the difficulties faced by the Miramax company in the wake of multiple allegations of sexual assault against Harvey Weinstein - Alfonso Gomez-Rejon's film about the battles over the invention of electricity finally arrives on screens.
Saved from extinction, The Current War is produced by Martin Scorsese and stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Thomas Edison, Nicholas Hoult as Nikola Tesla and Michael Shannon as George Westinghouse.
It's easy to understand why writer Michael Mitnick saw the potential for an epic historical film about the battle between two larger-than-life inventors and a big-picture-thinking capitalist with deep pockets in the race to ensure that their version of electricity would be the one to change the world forever.
But Mitnick's script is plodding, lacklustre and full of holes, and no amount of trying by the excellent cast can hide its flaws. The same can be said of the The Current War's overuse of artificial backdrops and epic camera movements and angles, which leave you feeling dizzy and irritated instead of creating proper engagement with the race between Edison and Tesla.
It is, finally, a surprisingly disappointing and "unelectrifying" story about an invention that changed the world and the men behind its creation.
The film fails to warrant the long time it took to get to screens.
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