The Uprising

Medieval cringe.

The Uprising tells the story of England during the reign of fourteen-year-old Richard II, whose advisors made all the decisions for him and raised taxes on ordinary people. At some point, the people in the village where The Ploughman lived had a pretty painful reaction to this. His fight with a guard led to his entire village rising up, and the rebellion quickly spread to different places and towns. Gathering a whole army, they marched on London to negotiate with the king. At first, the king seemed willing to meet their demands, allowing them to kill all his advisors, but later he revealed himself to be a cannibal and literally stabbed in the back those who had put their faith in him.

Overall, The Uprising can be described as a pretty tedious, boring, long, very grey and bland historical drama. I'm not particularly good at English history, since I'm not from England, but even I could tell that some of this was specific crap. And while the filmmakers weren't claiming to be historically accurate, the whole thing looked rather funny, considering some of the characters' trendy haircuts, the incredible number of clean white teeth, and the cinematography that felt more like a TV documentary you accidentally stumbled upon late at night in a hotel.

Here we have a story that an American distributor even tried to falsely sell as a Robin Hood movie, when what we're actually getting is the story of The Ploughman, who suddenly becomes a strategist and one hell of a negotiator. Alongside other characters, including a priest and a former soldier, he tries to achieve his own version of justice in a greedy and terrible world ruled by the rich. The intention might be good, even if it's obviously nothing new. But the execution leaves a lot to be desired.

The film looks very strange. It's incredibly grey, lacks dynamism, and is shot in a very odd way. The drone shots feel completely out of place, while the CGI looks rather peculiar at times. There's absolutely no character development to be found. Everyone does something on screen, but it's never clear why they're doing it. The king's sudden change in mood and his behaviour also feel very strange. Overall, everything looks a little too artificial.

Not even Andrew Garfield, Jamie Bell, and Cosmo Jarvis can save it. The three of them try to bring some emotion to their rebellious trio, delivering monologues that are written in an incredibly clumsy way. But it's nowhere near enough to make this picture engaging. The very young Woody Norman also feels rather strange in his role, as if he couldn't quite find the depth required for such a dramatic transformation in his character. But that's hardly surprising, considering that the film offers absolutely no depth to any of its characters, with many of them simply playing kings and some sort of superheroes in different setups.

Because, ultimately, The Uprising feels more like a sketch on a historical theme than a serious period drama.

4/10