Following in the footsteps of his pal Sylvester Stallone, legendary action star Arnold Schwarzenegger makes his debut as the lead in a television series with Netflix’s new action-comedy FUBAR. Notably, the show also marks the second attempt this year to adapt Schwarzenegger’s 1994 blockbuster True Lies into a television format. Of the two, this may be the less awful option. Sadly, that’s not saying much.
The official True Lies spinoff on CBS was a wretched mess the network has already mercifully canceled. Although FUBAR may, technically, claim to be an original project with no sanctioned connection to the True Lies film, anyone who watches will easily see the undeniable similarities in concept. FUBAR is a knockoff True Lies. It’s also not particularly good.
| Title: | FUBAR |
| Season: | 1 |
| Number of Episodes: | 8 |
| Release Date: | May 26, 2023 |
| Watched On: | Netflix |
The choice of title (an acronym for “fucked-up beyond all recognition”) almost feels like a wink-wink acknowledgement that nobody who made this show ever expected much out of it. While I wouldn’t say it’s quite that bad, the project is a thorough mediocrity on just about every level.
Schwarzenegger stars as Luke Brunner, a veteran CIA action hero who has saved the world from terrorists, human traffickers, and other assorted scumbags around the world countless times over, yet whose cover is so deep even his own wife and daughter have no idea he’s a spy. Sound familiar? The twist this time is that the daughter, Emma (Monica Barbaro), is also a CIA super-spy, and neither of them knows about the other’s secret life until they run into each other on a shared mission to take down a psycho South American warlord named Boro (Gabriel Luna). Upon this revelation, the two spies must learn to work together despite their endless bickering and Luke’s immediate regression into an overprotective caveman dad.
The series comes from the poisoned pen of Nick Santora, creator of the insanely stupid CBS drama Scorpion. That should be a huge red flag right there. Although the first season of FUBAR isn’t nearly as bad as that show was from its very inception, the writing is generally dumb, the comedy is mild, and the action is all very tepid. Schwarzenegger is game to make this work as best he can, but at 76-years-old, the former Terminator is well past his prime and must rely on obvious stunt doubles, green-screen, and CGI – none of which are especially inventive or convincing.
Almost all of the show’s humor is based upon repetition of a single joke – that daddy Luke can’t believe his little angel is all grown up now, and keeps trying to scuttle their missions rather than allow her to charge into harm’s way. Additional attempts at comedy, such as it is, come from Fortune Feimster and Travis Van Winkle as other agents on the team, Jay Baruchel as Emma’s milquetoast boyfriend, Adam Pally as an overly-friendly black market merchant, The Kids in the Hall veteran Scott Thompson as a goofy CIA psychologist, and Milan Carter as Luke’s handler and tech support (the Tom Arnold role from True Lies). Tom Arnold himself even turns up late in the season as a weirdly good-natured torturer.
FUBAR falls into an awkward middle ground. It’s not terrible enough to write off immediately, yet nothing in it works all that well. The series is neither especially funny nor exciting. Attempts to turn Schwarzenegger’s repetition of the line “That’s it and that’s all” into a catchphrase fall flat every time he says it. I almost wish the show were even worse, so I could have stopped after the first episode rather than stick it out for the whole season, hoping with increasing futility that it might get better. It never does.
Video Streaming
Netflix streams FUBAR in 4K HDR at an aspect ratio of 2.39:1. As much as the series may fail as entertainment, it makes a decent home theater showcase. The 4K image is extremely sharp, with rich colors and contrast. The Dolby Atmos soundtrack regularly spreads music into Front Wide and height speakers if you have them. Helicopters and gunfire also fly overhead. The track has good fidelity and nice bass action.
Episodes occasionally feature foreign-language dialogue. English subtitles during those scenes are positioned mostly inside the 2.39:1 image, but dip into the lower letterbox bar – far enough to be annoying for those of us watching in Constant Image Height projection, but not far enough to make the text unreadable.
The Video File Blog 
Apparently, they filmed a scene (or part of a scene) in Antwerp and Arnie even attempts to speak some Dutch. That compels me to at least check out an episode of ‘FUBAR’.
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I thought it was alright. I wanted to like it more but I was entertained enough to see it through all the way.
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