FUBAR review: Highly entertaining action comedy escapism

All eight episodes of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s highly anticipated action comedy FUBAR landed on Netflix this week in time for a weekend binge. The series, created by Nick Santora, follows a top CIA spy on the verge of retirement who finds out his daughter has also been secretly working for the agency.

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Where can you watch FUBAR in the UAE?

FUBAR is now streaming on Netflix in the UAE. If you don’t have one, you can create an account to watch this movie and other shows on Netflix.

FUBAR review

6

Highly Entertaining

FUBAR

WE LIKED

• Great action scenes 
• Plenty of humour
• Arnold Schwarzenegger

WE DIDN’T LIKE

• Repetitive plot themes
• Overuse of action tropes

What is FUBAR about?

The acronym FUBAR stands for “Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition/Repair” which perfectly encapsulates the situations in which the main characters in this series find themselves. Schwarzenegger plays Luke Brunner, a CIA secret agent whom we meet in the middle of what’s supposed to be the last mission he completes, aided by his handler and friend, Barry (Milan Carter). 

While illustrious, Luke’s career as a spy kept him away from his family. And he’s now looking forward to spending his golden years getting closer to his two grown kids, Emma (Monica Barbaro) and Oscar (Devon Bostick), and maybe winning back their mother, Tally (Fabiana Udenio), who divorced him more than a decade earlier. 

After his retirement party at the CIA, where Luke got to say goodbye to his team members, friends, and comic relief characters, Aldon (Travis Van Winkle) and Roo (Fortune Feimster), he learns the agency wants him on one last mission. He needs to rescue another undercover agent that infiltrated the compound of an arms dealer Luke’s connected with in the past, Boro (Gabriel Luna). 

To Luke’s shock, the agent he’s meant to rescue is none other than his sweet daughter, Emma. Not only has she been working for the CIA since graduating college, but she’s also pretty foul-mouthed. Now, the father-daughter duo must work together to stop Boro before he can sell a briefcase nuke (a nuclear bomb inside a carry-on briefcase) to a dangerous buyer.

Is FUBAR worth streaming?

The plot might remind you of Schwarzenegger’s 90s action film True Lies. But it’s a lot longer, and the protagonist’s daughter is the one with a secret. FUBAR has all the elements that made the star’s action movies from the 90s fun. There’s espionage, cool gadgets, violence, explosions, and crude humour. It’s action escapism at its finest.

While watching the series, it’s clear the cast had a blast (pun intended) making it. There’s chemistry between the leads, and they pull off that awkward father-daughter relationship to perfection. At first, Luke’s horrified to learn about his daughter’s career path, while Emma’s full of resentment at how the job kept her dad away from the family during her formative years.

But as the series progresses, and the two are forced to attend compulsory CIA therapy, they start developing a deeper understanding and respect for each other. Especially as Emma’s dating a rather boring guy named Carter (Jay Baruchel), a man she has to lie to as much as Luke did to his wife before she divorced him. 

FUBAR isn’t reinventing the wheel of action escapism. It’s full of tropes and gadgets and is a love letter to Schwarzenegger’s previous work. Not all the jokes land, and some scenes are surprisingly dark. There’s a mix of wholesome dad jokes, crude humour, and full-on grisly torture that shouldn’t work together, but it somehow does. 

This is a fun and binge-able series made to appeal to Arnie’s fans and newer audiences alike. The plot makes as much sense as it should, the acting is great and the special effects are more than adequate.

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