A bucket of Oscar bait that’s been sitting around for some two years, The Current War may still find an audience. And it should: the film certainly doesn’t reek of failure. But as its energetic early scenes give way to a sluggish second half, you start to sense how much better this good-enough movie might have been.

Beginning in 1880, the story centres on the rivalry between Thomas Edison (Benedict Cumberbatch) and George Westinghouse (Michael Shannon) as they race to wire American cities for electricity. Edison is a proponent of direct current, while Westinghouse pushes alternating current. (Even if you have trouble plugging in a toaster, don’t worry: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, the film’s director, makes their conflict clear enough, using sweeping music and sharp camera angles to tell us how to feel.)

Side stories abound. We meet Nikola Tesla (Nicholas Hoult, underused, as is Katherine Waterston as Westinghouse’s wife, Marguerite), J.P. Morgan (Matthew Macfadyen) and Samuel Insull (Tom Holland), Edison’s personal secretary. They and other famous figures pop in and out as Michael Mitnick’s script moves to its finale, where the two adversaries arrive at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.

If the plot doesn’t always pulse with excitement, the rest of the biopic screams prestige project: sumptuous sets and handsome costumes fill this period piece. There are also a few smart parallels to today’s celebrity entrepreneurs, and to a world undergoing rapid technological change.

The film was scheduled for release in late 2017 by the Weinstein Company. After accusations of sexual assault by Harvey Weinstein led to his company’s bankruptcy, the movie was sold to another studio. There were reshoots and re-edits, and additional delays. The film is now being released with the subtitle Director’s Cut to distinguish it from the version that premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in 2017 under Weinstein’s hand.

Cumberbatch cleverly embodies the ambitious Edison, who’s not above sacrificing a few pesky morals for success, nor using his fame to manipulate the media. (A scene where he first lights up a section of Manhattan is beautifully bold.) Shannon is restrained yet charismatic in a role that could have easily been overplayed. For sure, everyone here is fun to watch, making it all the more irksome when, perhaps a half-hour before the end, the film runs short of things to say.