In the run-up to its release, Paul Greengrass’ new film The Uprising has been subject to a sudden marketing switcheroo, in which its distributors have pivoted from calling it the story that “inspired” the Robin Hood legend—as hinted at with the final twist that resembles a mid-credits reveal in a Marvel movie—to implying that it’s a full-on Robin Hood adaptation. Not that modern Robin Hood re-imaginings are automatic box-office gold; a version with Hugh Jackman, The Death of Robin Hood, flopped just a couple of months ago.
Whether it’s a Robin Hood movie or not, The Uprising is a poorly-paced adventure that doesn’t allow star Andrew Garfield to do what he’s good at and, worst of all, features Greengrass’ trademark shaky-cam action style, deployed frequently in past decades in the Bourne movies, as well as United 93. I can’t overstate how much I despise this version of action filmmaking, and how happy I am that it’s fallen out of favor.
But even if it had been shot entirely coherently, The Uprising is a movie that I barely thought about again after leaving the theater. If rage directed at an English king is your thing, The Uprising is just as violent as Braveheart, but a lot more boring. The film follows the “Peasant Revolt” in the 14th century, when the English crown imposed a heavy tax on the peasantry after the Black Death, and they fought back while grieving their dead loved ones. The film’s plot, which drags past the two-hour mark, consists of a series of double-crosses by the king, leading into battle sequences in which the camera is swinging everywhere, and the camera is pointed, too much of the time, at people’s shoes.
Garfield’s character, known as “The Ploughman,” eventually emerges as the leader of the revolt, which includes several British actors (Jamie Bell, Cosmo Jarvis, Stephen Dillane, Johnny Lee Miller) whose names I never remember when I see them on screen. Tom Hollander gets the juiciest part, as the young king’s vizier. Woody Norman, who’s 17 but looks 12, plays the sniveling young king. He starred five years ago in C’mon C’mon, which was one of my least favorite movies of recent years. I’m more interested in that last-minute marketing switch—what, did they think they’d be kicking off a multi-part Merry Men cinematic universe—than anything that happens in The Uprising.