Common Sense Media Review
By Joyce Slaton
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Action-adventure series has violence, language, comic edge.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 15+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Watch
Videos and Photos
FUBAR
What's the Story?
After a lifetime spent doing covert ops for the CIA (which were so secret he didn't even tell his family about them), FUBAR's Luke Brunner (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is more than ready to retire and become a civilian once more. He'll spend time with his grandkids, and maybe he can win back the affections of his estranged wife, Tally (Fabiana Udenio). But when the CIA needs him for one last mission, he discovers that he's not the only CIA operative in the family. Now it's up to Luke and daughter Emma (Monica Barbaro) to team up to save the world…if they can stop arguing long enough to do it.
Is It Any Good?
This polarizing action-adventure show is predictable and lazily written, but has a great cast, fun visuals, and a plotline that's undemanding and easy to follow. Viewers who are already Schwarzenegger fans, or those who enjoyed the steady flow of action films he's starred in since the 1980s, are the most likely to enjoy FUBAR. Reminiscent of films like True Lies, FUBAR has a light, comic tone, family complications, and violence without much of an emotional impact. Action movie fans who don't demand narrative coherence or realism will love seeing Schwarzenegger spitting puns and shooting guns once more, and each episode passes by briskly, en route to a conclusion that's likely to find characters laughing, hugging, or both.
Viewers who aren't already action movie fans or won over by Schwarzenegger are unlikely to be converted by FUBAR, though. The first episode opens to the strains of The Rolling Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil," a cliched (and over five decades old) choice that's a harbinger of things to come. Then the narrative setup kicks in: Luke Brunner and his daughter Emma are both super-spies but neither knows the other's with the CIA! They have to team up to take out a Big Bad and his deadly super-weapon, but in the meantime they won't stop feuding, so the CIA sends them to therapy together! The therapist uses puppets in the sessions! If that revelation already has you rolling your eyes, FUBAR's probably not for you.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about action movies and how they present violence as exciting. How does FUBAR mute the impact of death and violence so that it's not as disturbing as it would be in real life? What would be the real-life consequences of violence like that seen in FUBAR?
FUBAR is similar to action-comedies such as True Lies, which also starred Schwarzenegger. Would FUBAR have made a better movie than a series? Why or why not?
Arnold Schwarzenegger has for decades been a popular movie star. How does your memory of his past roles change how you view him as Luke Brunner? What reputation does he bring with him to this role, and how does it affect how the audience receives him?
TV Details
- Premiere date : May 25, 2023
- Cast : Arnold Schwarzenegger , Monica Barbaro , Milan Carter
- Network : Netflix
- Genre : Action
- TV rating :
- Last updated : May 30, 2023
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