Netflix gives Arnold Schwarzenegger his first ever series. FUBAR is pretty action trash at times, but will bring tears of laughter to your eyes.
Arnold Schwarzenegger is not sexy. By that I don’t mean the outward signs of age of a lifelong bodybuilder, but his reputation with action fans. Schwarzenegger’s genre merits are undisputed, but he is seen as a boomer hero. 80s class reunions like the Expendables series only reinforce that impression. The Terminator series is dying a slow death. So how good can Arnie’s series FUBAR be on Netflix, with him returning as an action hero four years after Terminator: Dark Fate? It certainly surprised me.
FUBAR on Netflix: This is what Arnold Schwarzenegger’s action series is all about
The FUBAR story doesn’t shine with originality at first. CIA veteran Luke Brunner (Schwarzenegger) is about to retire and is happy to finally spend more time with ex-wife Tally (Fabiana Udenio) and grown-up daughter Emma (Monica Barbaro). They have no idea about his top-secret agent assignments and have thought he was a boring businessman for 40 years.
Monica Barbaro and Arnold
Then, during Brunner’s last mission, the bombshell bursts: his previously so innocent daughter turns out to be his CIA contact and an experienced agent. The shock and breach of trust is great for both of them, but there is little time for arguments: crime boss Boro (Gabriel Luna) threatens the world with destruction. The Brunners go on a mission together.
FUBAR is a disappointment for action fans
To put it bluntly: FUBAR will disappoint action fans. Schwarzenegger is now 75 years old and simply too slow as a believable one-man army. That’s expected, a bit mean and won’t enrage any real fan, but it’s irritating nonetheless. The fight scenes are not badly staged, but far from the virtuoso choreography with which John Wick: Chapter 4, for example, currently amazes.
Besides, the series looks terrible. FUBAR is lit like the ARD morning magazine and the cheap CGI doesn’t make it any better. Details such as muzzle flashes sometimes look so artificial as if they had sprung from a Photoshop experiment by the trash smithy The Asylum, known for the Sharknado films, among others.
