Critic Reviews

Anchored by a terrific Andrew Garfield, The Uprising is a terrific example of the historical epic, with strong central performances elevating it beyond the handful of underdeveloped elements that would otherwise hold it back.

The Uprising chronicles the infamous Peasants’ Revolt — the first populist rebellion in English history — with a rough-and-tumble energy and a bracing moral complexity.

The vast majority of The Uprising is a competent, straightforward recreation of a landmark historical event. A talented team of below-the-line artists recreate the drab poverty of feudal England with impressive detail, and there shouldn’t be any complaints about Greengrass’ staging of the battle sequences. The parallels to today’s world are clearly on display, but the script stops just short of hitting audiences over the head too hard.

Greengrass’s scattershot attempt at historical parallels is ideologically incoherent. The movie’s appeal is elsewhere, and simple: It’s an energetic, satisfying yarn. The fact that most of us in the United States know nothing of the history only makes it better — everything is a surprise, and the factual divergences are not apparent.

The murkiness of it all clarifies by the end of the film, not just in terms of its heroes, villains and message, but Greengrass also situates this story within a recognizable cinematic and storytelling history. There’s a thrill as it all comes together. Greengrass might be making a big swing (of the scythe), but his blade finds its target nevertheless.

In typical Greengrassian fashion, The Uprising proves intense from first minute to last, the director utilizing his familiar handheld camera and frenetic editing style to an at times exhausting degree. The stylistic approach works well enough during the many and extremely bloody action sequences, but eventually proves so relentless and lacking in modulation that the film becomes a grueling and sometimes tedious experience.

Andrew Garfield’s character doesn’t even have a name. He’s just known as Ploughman. Ploughman mad. Ploughman kill. Ploughman kill with friends. Ploughman sad. Friends dead. Ploughman kill some more. That’s the movie. Dumb, relentless, visceral, cathartic.

This story of oppression, protest, political violence, and populist uprisings is over 600 years old. It could not feel more relevant or timely.

Most of The Uprising is very good. The action is dirty, Jarvis and Bell are exactly what you would expect, Norman is nearly unwatchable in the best sense when Richard II is at his worst, and Garfield is superb. When the revolt breaks out, the film has bite. 1381 feels alive and more relevant than ever in 2026. Too bad a hooded legend had to get in the way of history.

An attempt to put a neat bow on a story that doesn’t lend itself to simplistic moral lessons, it’s an epilogue that feels like nothing so much as a lazy attempt to ascribe a more deliberately uplifting conclusion to a rebellion whose long-tail impact isn’t particularly easy to quantify.