“The Uprising” starts as a true story of medieval England in the grip of economic revolution. That's good stuff. Then it gets inexplicably hijacked by an origin story for one of the West's most popular folk heroes. That's head-scratching stuff.
Paul Greengrass' movie mixes fact and fiction in such an anachronistic, uncomfortable way that it undercuts the movie-maker's initial populist scream and ceases to hold its historical power, like air escaping a deflated balloon.
It begins with a simple farmer — played with unflinching commitment by Andrew Garfield — plowing his marshy plot in east England in 1381. It builds to the blood-soaked streets of London, where this simple farmer's demands helped put the mighty British crown in real jeopardy during the Peasants’ Revolt. Then it turns out the farmer is Robin Hood. What? “The Uprising” might be 2026’s worst case of cinematic overreach.
Greengrass has said he was inspired to write and direct “The Uprising” following the pandemic, recalling how the Black Death plague of the late 1300s had killed so many and led to spasms of violence against those in power. But he’s ended up meshing fact — real rebel leaders Wat Tyler and John Ball — and fiction, that Hood dude. And no one is merry, if you know what I mean.
The arc of Garfield's character — only known as “Ploughman,” a nod to William Langland’s poem “Piers Plowman” — is fascinating, going from a humble widower-farmer to leading ragtag armies of urchins against the mighty crown like an English version of “Les Miserables.” He's a little too perfect — a noble, grieving philosopher-warrior-diplomat-everyman.
Ploughman is motivated by unrelenting taxes and cruelty by the king’s men — “We’ve given you enough!” he screams — to demand change only to get swept up in the eat-the-rich movement and watch in disgust as his demands for economic rights and dignity dissolve into widespread looting and anarchy. “I did not come for this,” he says. “Where is God in any of this?” But to be fair, he does also kill a sergeant-at-arms to kick the whole thing off. It’s a pity he’s entirely fictional.
Jamie Bell, who plays the priest Ball, and Cosmo Jarvis' Tyler, are outstanding as leaders of the people, with slightly different agendas. Woody Norman is brilliant as the teenage Richard II, simpering one moment and lethal the next, and Katherine Waterston is awesome as the king's mother. The rebels naively believe all they need is to get the king to hear their demands. They're in for a shock. “Justice has a price, does it not?” a simpering royal counselor says.
Greengrass' movie is gloriously rooted in the medieval muck. Animals bleat, smoke billows, hair is stringy, cloaks are filthy, no one has washed. You can almost smell the body odor through the screen. The violence is also not stylized — it's brutal, from beheadings and arrows slicing into bodies to our Ploughman suspiciously good at close-contact swordplay.
For three-quarters of the movie, we’re on Greengrass’ side, helped by his penchant for shaky, handheld camerawork, which here matches the kinetic, always-on-the-move drama.
Movie audiences are facing an affordability crisis and here is a populist rebellion against an out-of-touch aristocracy. “Can you not hear their rage?” the king asks. But violence is violence and some viewers will wince when a mob bursts into royal offices to burn and pillage, recalling scenes from the 2021 Capitol riot.
That good will Greengrass has built — he even supplied lyrics to marching songs — evaporates when Ploughman becomes Robin Hood. It doesn't even make temporal sense: Those stories were set during the reign of Richard the Lionheart, who died nearly two centuries before the Peasants’ Revolt took place. Putting him in “The Uprising” is like putting Paul Bunyan at the Chernobyl disaster. You can do it, but why?
Also, it doesn't make much character sense. Ploughman goes from embracing populism to the depths of cynicism only to re-emerge as an outlaw in the woods robbing rich folks? And a morose Robin Hood is not what we want in 2026, especially a second one following Hugh Jackman’s “The Death of Robin Hood.” Greengrass has quite simply robbed his own movie. We did not come for this.
“The Uprising,” a Focus Features release that's in theaters Friday, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for “violence/bloody images.” Running time: 127 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.
Thomasin McKenzie, from left, Woody Norman, Paul Greengrass, Katherine Waterston and Andrew Garfield arrive at the premiere of "The Uprising" on Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2026, at the DGA Theater Complex in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)
CAIRO (AP) — A limited fire broke out Tuesday in an administrative building at Aramco, one of the world’s largest oil facilities, that was targeted in an attack in the country’s Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Energy said. The ministry said no injuries were reported.
The attack came as the Iranian-backed Houthis and the Saudi coalition fighting them exchanged attacks Tuesday night. The fighting marked a fresh escalation in the widening Middle East crisis and came shortly after the Saudi coalition reported a series of alerts for incoming missiles heading for the Eastern Province, a major oil-producing region, and the capital Riyadh.
Saudi Arabia’s Civil Defense said debris from two intercepted Houthi missiles fell on residential areas in Riyadh, injuring four people and damaging 15 homes.
The coalition of forces in Yemen led by Saudi Arabia carried out new airstrikes Tuesday on the Houthi rebel-held Yemeni capital, the Houthi-run broadcaster Al Masirah and residents said.
The strikes came shortly after a coalition spokesman urged residents to evacuate the area for their safety. Witnesses reported hearing strong explosions in Sanaa hours after the coalition struck the Subaha fuel facility west of the city.
In a rare statement earlier, the coalition had urged civilians in the Houthi-controlled capital to leave the Yemeni Oil Company site, on a hill overlooking the capital, and nearby storage areas ahead of a possible strike.
Coalition spokesman Maj. Gen. Turki al-Maliki accused the Houthis of using the facility and its underground fuel depots for their arsenal of missiles and drones.
Houthi officials appeared to have anticipated the attack. The oil company said its storage facilities were empty and that a Saudi strike would not affect oil reserves or supplies for residents. Still, witnesses in the city said lines of cars formed at some gas stations amid fears of a shortage.
Shortly after the warning, Houthi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree said on Telegram that any Saudi attack on Sanaa would be met with a “firm and painful” response in the Saudi capital, Riyadh.
Hours later, Saudi Arabia issued alerts for incoming missiles heading for Riyadh and the Eastern Province but quickly said the danger had passed. The coalition said it had intercepted a series of Houthi-launched ballistic missiles, drones and cruise missiles in multiple areas in the country, including Riyadh and the southern province of Wadi al-Dawasir. Riyadh residents reported hearing loud explosions.
Airlines moved a number of their planes out of Riyadh on Tuesday on the advice of insurers and government officials because of the threat of additional attacks. They needed to transfer the planes to other airports in the country so they can keep flying passengers to their destinations, said Osprey Flight Solutions Chief Intelligence Officer Matthew Borie, whose company advises airlines, insurers and countries on flight threats.
“It’s not abnormal for this to occur especially in this day and age with the types of conflict zone situations that have occurred in the region,” Borie said.
More than 3,120 flights scheduled to depart from airports across Saudi Arabia since Oct. 8 have been canceled or listed as not operating, representing about 41% of scheduled departures, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium. That includes more than 300 flights that had been scheduled to depart Wednesday.
Several airlines have suspended service to the kingdom because of the Houthi attacks on airports.
It was unclear whether the Tuesday strike in Yemen was a signal of military escalation or a carefully measured response to recent deadly attacks on the Riyadh airport.
The warning and the attack show “the Saudis’ aims of upping the ante and striking deep in the heart of Houthi-controlled territory while attempting to control the narrative by presenting themselves as more careful and humanitarian actors than the Houthis,” said Adam Baron, a fellow at the Washington-based New America institute.
“It may be a warning — or it may be a sign of things to come," he said.
Saudi Arabia is still scrambling to determine how its air defenses failed to intercept a barrage of missiles and drones fired by the Houthis, including an attack on Riyadh's international airport on Saturday that killed at least 13 people and wounded over 300.
The latest conflict between the Saudis and the Houthis began last month after the rebels seized key areas along the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a critical waterway for the transport of Gulf oil and other goods at the southern end of the Red Sea off Yemen.
The Saudi-led coalition, backing forces aligned with Yemen’s internationally recognized government, has been trying to retake them.
Saudi Arabia’s Cabinet on Tuesday warned the Houthis they would “face consequences” for their repeated attacks on the kingdom.
“The Kingdom will not allow any threat to its security or to freedom of maritime navigation in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab Strait,” the Cabinet said in a statement carried by Saudi state-owned Al-Ekhbariya television. The Bab el-Mandeb is another area key to the flow of oil out of the Persian Gulf.
On Tuesday, Yemen’s interior ministry said in a statement on X that Houthi strikes over the past day on Taiz, a major city in the country's southwest, had killed six people and injured 18 amid ongoing battles in the region.
A commander with the Saudi-backed forces said rebels had fought through fierce resistance to reach the edges of Taiz, and some had entered the city. The fight was now critical for Taiz, which has long been a sought-after prize, he said.
The commander, speaking on condition of anonymity to describe battlefield details, said rebel forces were surprisingly large, and bolstered by medium and short-range ballistic missiles.
That fighting is leading to the large-scale displacement of people and growing shortages of food and other supplies, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Tuesday, with cooking gas largely unavailable and food prices that have reportedly risen about 50%.
Saudi Arabia has been pushing for the U.S. military to provide more direct support in the fight against the Houthis.
The U.S. has provided intelligence sharing, target identification and planning for a Saudi-led offensive, but has held off on carrying out strikes against the Houthis.
A U.S. intervention could prompt the Houthis to try to halt shipping through the Bab el-Mandeb.
Associated Press writers Sarah El Deeb in Beirut, Samy Magdy in Cairo, Aamer Madhani in Jerusalem, Rio Yamat in Las Vegas, and AP Transportation Writer Josh Funk in Omaha, Nebraska, contributed.
A truck loaded with firewood drives through the Al-Basateen neighborhood in Aden, Yemen, Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdulnasser Alseddik)
