Nobody likes to have the full plot of a movie spoiled before they’ve even seen it. However, sometimes this can be taken to the extreme. Take the new Paul Greengrass movie, The Uprising, for example.
It is two weeks away from its US release and not only does nobody know the plot, but nobody seems to know what it is even about. Seriously, nobody at all. The film’s distributors just spent yesterday squabbling in public about whether Robin Hood was in it or not.
Here’s what we know so far. Initially, all the trailers and promotional materials made The Uprising look like a film about the Peasants’ Revolt that tore through England in 1381. And this was very exciting, since the revolt was a thrilling moment in history that has been bizarrely underserved by Hollywood over the years.
Most exciting of all, though, it sounded like it fit exactly into Greengrass’s wheelhouse: full of action and realism and political awareness. But that all changed this week, when the film’s US distributor, Focus Features, announced the film’s full title on social media. What had once simply been The Uprising was now The Uprising: The Rise of Robin Hood.
It added a new synopsis, reading: “Set against the true events of the Uprising that helped inspire the legend of Robin Hood, [Andrew Garfield’s character] forms an army of the people to face the King’s might in a fight for justice.” Needless to say, this was both confusing and frustrating. Frustrating because it sounded like a historically grounded and socially relevant film would now contain a character best known for once being played by a cartoon fox, and confusing because the stories of Robin Hood were set during the reign of Richard the Lionheart, who died nearly two centuries before the Peasants’ Revolt took place. Andrew Garfield’s character seemed to be at the centre of the mix-up.
Officially credited as “The Ploughman”, we can assume that he has been named after William Langland’s poem Piers Plowman, which was written in the years leading up to the revolt. The poem is known for containing the first unambiguous literary reference to Robin Hood. It is also worth pointing out that, in 2022 when the film was first announced, The Uprising was set to be called The Hood.
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