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FUBAR, Netflix, review: Arnold Schwarzenegger’s first TV series is a shameless True Lies rip-off

FUBAR, Netflix, review: Arnold Schwarzenegger’s first TV series is a shameless True Lies rip-off

Arnie is back in a typically action-packed thriller – but with cheap stunts and simple dialogue, FUBAR is nothing to get excited about

Netflix is gearing up for a summer of Schwarzenegger. He’s their new “Chief Action Officer”, according to a recent advert, and there’s a three-part documentary series on his life and career coming in June. But first, Arnie aficionados must wade through undercooked action-comedy FUBAR.

The 75-year-old former governor of California stars as an ageing super-spy, Luke Brunner, whose retirement plans go off the rails when he learns his adult daughter has a secret life as a CIA agent.



Schwarzenegger was Hollywood’s first and best action hero. As a quippy beefcake, nobody could hold a flame-thrower to him in the 80s and 90s. Thankfully, that lunkish pizazz endures and is the saving grace in an otherwise formulaic and forgettable comeback.

Plot-wise, FUBAR – F**ked Up Beyond All Recognition, a military acronym for when things go chaotically amiss – is a shameless riff on Schwarzenegger’s 1994 hit, True Lies. In that movie, he played a suburban dad with a hidden identity as a US counterterrorism agent. Here, he’s a suburban dad… with a secret life as a US counterterrorism agent.



The twist is that, in addition to fighting terrorists and arms dealers, Brunner must patch up a shaky relationship with adult daughter Emma (a game Monica Barbaro, Top Gun: Maverick). She shares her father’s talent for black ops and has been recruited by the CIA behind his back. But it’s only as he’s half out the door and headed for retirement that he learns of her secret identity when the agency sends him on secret mission to rescue her in Central America. Father and daughter are equally miffed to discover their nearest and dearest have been living a hidden life.

FUBAR, Netflix, review: Arnold Schwarzenegger’s first TV series is a shameless True Lies rip-off

To its credit, FUBAR ticks off several solid action movie clichés. There are “exotic” locations – including Central Asia and Moldova. The action sequences have clearly been made on the tightened budgets that have become a Netflix signature as it tightens its purse strings in the face of falling subscriber numbers, but they’re often imaginative. Highlights include a daddy-daughter team-up on a runaway train loaded with nuclear waste and a climactic shoot-out in a church.



But the show is hobbled by a hugely annoying line-up of secondary characters. Travis Van Winkle and Fortune Feimster strain in vain for laughs as a bickering duo of field agents, while Milan Carter does his best as Brunner’s irritatingly geeky side-kick, Barry.

The only one who can hold their own against Arnold is Gabriel Luna, fantastically over-the-top as mega-villain Boro. Luna, last seen in zombie apocalypse drama The Last Of Us, munches on the scenery as the baddie whose organisation Emma had been attempting to infiltrate when her dad is parachuted in to help. There’s also an extended cameo by Tom Arnold, with whom Schwarzenegger starred in True Lies, as a wacky torture specialist.

FUBAR, Netflix, review: Arnold Schwarzenegger’s first TV series is a shameless True Lies rip-off

Schwarzenegger has worked with visionaries such as James Cameron and Paul Verhoeven. FUBAR lands quite a few rungs below those auteurs, though its creator Rick Santora arrives fresh from his successful adaption of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher series for Amazon.



Still, Schwarzenegger refuses to be put off by the often workmanlike dialogue – he doesn’t get a single decent one-liner – and rickety special effects. He has great fun taking on Boro, who has built a portable nuclear bomb and plans to sell it to the highest bidder. Schwarzenegger also deploys his nifty comic timing in a domestic sub-plot in which Luke tries to win back his ex-wife Tally (Fabiana Udenio) away from her nerdish fiancé Donnie (The Office’s Andy Buckley).

Schwarzenegger’s enthusiasm has an electric effect on what would otherwise be a moribund action-thriller. Any actor who can maintain his dignity in a toe-curling scene in which Brunner and Emma are encouraged by a CIA psychologist to express their feelings for each other using Sesame Street-style hand puppets is to be admired.



The eight episodes culminate in a cliffhanger, almost confirming a second season is on the cards (though you never know, given the breakneck pace at which Netflix cancels series). Action fans will be delighted that Arnold has returned and it looks as though he has no intention of going anywhere. But what a shame that the Schwarzenegger renaissance has to begin with this clanger.

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