I feel like I should preface this by saying I have a weird interest in this whole topic. I live in an area that venerates Edison, I went to a Thomas Edison Elementary school, there's a statue of him in town so the story of Edison was a pretty strong topic in my early education years and it always focused on this idea that Edison was a brilliant man without ever focusing on his foibles or shortcomings. Tesla was the mad scientist trying to rip Edison off and I had no idea who Westinghouse was. So, watching a movie that delves into the less publicized version of the story was fascinating to me.
Problem is, it's trying to cover way too much ground. At first it seems like it's going to focus on Edison, and it kind of does but we also have a solid portion focusing on Westinghouse and then there's Tesla who feels just sort of shoved in there and Insull as the nothing to something story? Each of them is delivered with strong performances. Cumberbatch, Hoult, Shannon and Holland all together? Yes please. I just wish we could've focused on something rather than constantly spreading the story as thin as possible and the artistic flourishes don't help and neither does the underwhelming ending.
All in all, this is a fairly generic historical drama with a wonderful cast but a lack of focus. It's trying to do too much to really commit strongly enough to anything or give any of these talented actors a chance to properly shine. Also, seriously, Tesla is a captivating character and he is woefully underutilized here. I enjoyed it, and it had me going off to research the subject a bit so I learned something from the experience, and that's a win. That said, it's not a great movie and could probably live happily in the background noise realm but I found myself being drawn in fairly often but regardless, I think this is worth a watch for sure.
Problem is, it's trying to cover way too much ground. At first it seems like it's going to focus on Edison, and it kind of does but we also have a solid portion focusing on Westinghouse and then there's Tesla who feels just sort of shoved in there and Insull as the nothing to something story? Each of them is delivered with strong performances. Cumberbatch, Hoult, Shannon and Holland all together? Yes please. I just wish we could've focused on something rather than constantly spreading the story as thin as possible and the artistic flourishes don't help and neither does the underwhelming ending.
All in all, this is a fairly generic historical drama with a wonderful cast but a lack of focus. It's trying to do too much to really commit strongly enough to anything or give any of these talented actors a chance to properly shine. Also, seriously, Tesla is a captivating character and he is woefully underutilized here. I enjoyed it, and it had me going off to research the subject a bit so I learned something from the experience, and that's a win. That said, it's not a great movie and could probably live happily in the background noise realm but I found myself being drawn in fairly often but regardless, I think this is worth a watch for sure.