His brand is at no point challenged. Schwarzenegger has an action comedy series on Netflix, Fubar, and it was never going to put that in jeopardy. So the effect is cosy, but in fairness to the director Lesley Chilcott, it is never boring.
However Schwarzenegger got there, “Arnold” reminds us of his often-surprising and mostly charmed life, failures and all. And while one is tempted to say, “He’ll be back,” the truth is that when it comes to fame, Schwarzenegger hasn’t left the stage, in one field or another, since he first muscled onto it.
Despite the fact that Schwarzenegger isn’t exactly the most introspective person in the world, Arnold is still a fascinating portrait of a person who has was determined to be a success in the United States and has achieved in mostly every field he entered.
Consider this a glorified promotional video, albeit a handsomely made one. Hasta la vista indeed.
Your tolerance for this much smäh will depend on how much you like Schwarzenegger’s shimmering present-tense narrative. (About working on “End of Days” after undergoing heart surgery: “This is a new day. Let’s just move forward.”) Some will find the sheer length of “Arnold” to be punishing enough, while others will puzzle over a clueless narrative full of ersatz values.
Arnold might be an airbrushed profile but it’s also a breezy watch that the actor’s loyal fan base will lap up.
“Arnold” is a welcome opportunity to spend time with one of the most amazing success stories in Hollywood — and political — history.
Arnold doesn’t really offer a frank assessment of Schwarzenegger’s fairly disastrous time in office as California governor, but in addition to getting him to discuss the groping allegation, the filmmakers also ask him about fathering a son, Joseph, with his Guatemalan maid, Mildred Patricia Baena.
Though Chilcott is credited as director, the one really dictating where it all goes and what it discusses remains Schwarzenegger himself. He is almost always the one with his hands firmly on the wheel of Arnold, steering it into a work that is occasionally revealing yet too carefully sculpted to be fully transcendent.
Arnold’s candidness thus feels manicured, and hardly designed to plumb Schwarzenegger’s legacy in anything other than rosy terms. Fortunately, for most of its three-hour runtime, it doesn’t have to strain too hard to craft an uplifting and charismatic portrait of dedication and determination.
Interesting
My son and I have been long time fans of (the better) Arnold movies, and my daughter is dating a bodybuilder, so all of us enjoyed this biopic about an individual who chose to excel in every aspect of his life. He was the top athlete in his field, the top performer in entertainment, and the top public servant for anyone not born in the USA. Time to get to work!
As a fan, it was fun to revisit old stories, even if we know them very well. The show knows when to tell us the gist of some events, but it also knows when to dive deep in detail over some other stories.
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