What a frustrating film THE UPRISING is! It's rather handsomely made, and there's nothing wrong with any of the performances per se. It's just so interminably dour and dull and earnest and ploddingly predictable. For this is an England immiserated by the plague and weighed down by taxation, where the peasants are marching on London to demand relief and justice from a weak young King. Everything is mud and dun-coloured woollens and unwashed hair. There is no subtlety here. It's the world of Wat Tyler and savage pre-democratic injustice. All of which is fine and may indeed be worth a feature film. But then the writer-director Paul Greengrass, of BOURNE fame, shoehorns in a weirdly anachronistic Robin Hood prequel. It's just so odd and clearly no-one knew what to do with it, not least the marketing team. Is this a Robin Hood film? Not really. It is it a straightforward historical drama? I guess? I found the whole thing desperately uninvolving. Which is a shame because a lot of time and care has gone into recreating atmospheric night-time riot scenes with extras punching each other galore. But at a moment of high climax to hear our Robin avatar shout out "We need Bedfordshire!" and "Keep the script even!" is enough to signal that this film really has just jumped the shark.
THE UPRISING is rated 15 and has an interminable running time of 2hrs 8m. It was released in the USA last month and will be released in the UK on Friday.
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