Critical response
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 53% of 66 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6/10. Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 56 out of 100, based on 29 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B–" on an A+ to F scale.
In a mixed review for Variety, Michael Phillips described The Uprising as "a well-acted blur of fits and starts"; he praised Garfield, Waterston, McKenzie, and Bell's acting, but criticized the attempt to tie the film into the Robin Hood legend and described Greengrass's "shaky" camera style and use of panoramic drone shots as distracting and unsuited to the historical subject of the film. In a review for Collider, Meredith Loftus described The Uprising as "a well-made historical drama with pertinent themes," but criticized Focus Features' decision to market it as a Robin Hood film, writing, "Rather than letting it stand on its own, the new tagline suggests that the studio doesn't trust its audience to see it without obvious IP at the forefront."
In a review for The Wrap, William Bibbiani characterized The Uprising as a strong film with a powerful emotional story arc and fitting initial conclusion that was completely ruined by its Robin Hood-inspired epilogue, which he perceived as having been spuriously tacked on to give the otherwise bleak film a more upbeat ending to appease studio executives, similar to the ending of F. W. Murnau's The Last Laugh, writing, "The Uprising is such a tragic rug pull, sullying its hard-earned good will at the last possible minute, that it's hard to appreciate anything that happened before the disappointment sank in." In a review for Daily Express, George Simpson echoed this sentiment, praising the main characters' acting and the action sequences, but describing the epilogue as "bizarre" and "anachronistic."
In a positive review for Deadline, Pete Hammond praised The Uprising as "crackerjack action film," with a "roaring" pace, a "well chosen" cast, and "top drawer" production values. He also highlighted the film's contemporary resonance, saying that the film's setting shortly after the Black Death parallels its release date shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic, while its depiction of corrupt oligarchs using their positions to enrich themselves while oppressing the peasantry echoes growing wealth inequality in the present day. In a largely positive review for CBR, Rachel Leishman praised the film's whole cast as "absolutely stellar," its action sequences as "elevat[ing]," and Greengrass's camera style as "feel[ing] like the HBO series Succession," but she criticized the film for not having enough Robin Hood in it, writing, "the movie overall could have benefited from more men in tights."
By contrast, in a negative review for The Guardian, Owen Myers described The Uprising as a "grim and depressingly generic period piece," "a disjointed slog through the mud with the emotional depth of a History Channel rerun," and "about as fun as trench foot." He specifically criticized Garfield's Ploughman character as generic and lacking "any particular magnetism or spice," the film's dreary aesthetic for its "sludge-grey sky, scratchy brown sacks that everyone wears and the fact that no one seems to have had a wash in weeks," and Greengrass's handheld camera style, writing, "the only uprising I felt during the seasick fight scenes was my breakfast threatening to return on me."
In a negative review for /Film, Jeremy Mathai described The Uprising as "a dull, dreary disappointment," criticizing Greengrass's handheld camera style as "completely at odds with a historical period piece," the script as "half-baked," the characters as underdeveloped, and the action sequences as "perfunctory" and "never in focus." He concludes, "Every so often, you can just sense when a movie is scrambling for a reason to exist. Forget Robin Hood. "The Uprising" ultimately has nothing interesting to say — about anything, really."
