Breakdance 2

For all the B-Boy and all the B-Girls.... This movie represents! I wouldn't expect anyone who didn't live the breaker life to appreciate it. I get just as excited watching this film as I did when I was little. It's a classic!

Nothing in the world can prepare you for Breakin 2: Electric Boogaloo. No description does it justice, no warning truly gives you an idea of what you are in store for. Few movies are as bizarre, yet oddly compelling at the same time.

Because one movie wasn't enough to contain these people; Breakin 2 picks up where the first movie picks off. Or so I assume, I haven't seen Breakin, but the three main characters Kelly (Lucinda Dickey), Ozone (Adolfo Quinones) and Turbo (Michael Chambers) are the same. In this installment the trio try to save a youth center named Miracles from the clutches of evil (read: white and unhip) government bigwigs who want to bulldoze the unsafe building and make way for a new shopping center.

It's fortunate that the trio live in an alternate universe in which breakdancing can solve all of society's ills. No exaggeration here; over the course of ninety-four boogie filled minutes, dancing stops bulldozers, pays bills, ends gang wars, and even cures the ill and the infirm (One person bounds out of the wheelchair in jubilation; apparently they simply forgot they could walk). There is so much dancing in this movie that it frequently appears that the plot is intruding on it, and not the other way around. These are people who work a hard day's living dancing then go home and blow off some steam by, what else, dancing.

This isn't a poorly made movie in the traditional sense; it isn't full of continuity holes or bad special effects. For all its silliness, it probably succeeds in exactly the way it wanted to; as a movie about people who love breakdancing so much they'd rather do that than say, eat, sleep, converse, or share meaningful human contact. More than fifteen years later, it's terribly quaint, and hilariously dated. But it has a city-wide dance party, a hospital-wide dance party, a dance-filled climax (a shock, I know) and two performances by Ice-T. What more do you want? Do yourself a favor and rent this movie. By the end, you'll be dancing too.

When the movie "Breakin'" came out the whole trend of breakdancing was everywhere. It was absolutely huge. So obviously they needed to make a sequel but this time to focus on breakdancing's little brother, Electric Boogaloo. And a meme was born. And I mean that literally. Electric Boogaloo became the standard response to whenever a movie was coming out with a sequel for decades to come.

Batman Returns? No, people called it "Batman 2: Electric Boogaloo". Terminator 2? Of course not. It was "Terminator 2: Electric Boogaloo". It's so popular a saying that even 35 years later people are still making this comment whenever a new sequel is coming out. Usually it is reserved for movies that are less popular or people wonder why they're making a sequel but occasionally you get a wag that didn't get the memo.

The story itself is pretty standard fare. The main characters are back. Kelly is now dancing in some chorus line somewhere and wanting to go to France. While Ozone and Turbo are heading up a youth center called "Miracles". But along comes an evil developer that wants to put up a shopping mall where Miracles is. So the only way to save it is to put on a show, raise a lot of money and make sure that the mortgage on it is paid and that Miracles stays where it is. This is a plot device that I seem to recall being used by the Lil Rascals back in the day. And I mean the actual B&W series from the 30's.

This is cut with scenes of what Shabba-Doo a.k.a Ozone and Boogaloo Shrimp a.k.a Turbo do best which is dance. And let me tell you, this is something they are able to do. When it comes to their acting? Not so much.

To call the plot contrived and the actors not being able to act is like calling a duck a duck. They're not actors, they're dancers and that's what you came to see.

The movie itself is pretty bad but as I said, if you're seeing this for any other reason than either you love bad movies or want to see them dance then you're here for all the wrong reasons.

Nothing changed here. Story's still the same. People are still break dancing! This sequel was made within not even a full year after the original. Gotta love the 80's.

Rich girl Kelly Bennett is now a chorus dancer after the close of Street Jazz. She and Ozone are together and his ex Rhonda is jealous. Turbo falls for Latina dancer Lucia. Ozone and Turbo are teaching street dancing to the kids. Byron runs local community center Miracles where they hang out. Developer Douglas is trying to tear it down and build a shopping center. Sleazy minion Randall pushes the local government to tear it down. The dance trio defeats the Electros in a dance off. The community has to battle the developer to save their Miracles.

I don't remember Kelly having a rich family in the first movie. I guess it's possible that she was being independent working in that diner. It looks more like a manufactured class conflict between Kelly and her street life. This time around, the movie is asking more acting from the group and it's met with varying results. Kelly and Ozone have no real romantic chemistry. It double-downs on the first movie's little crush and the actors struggle to have any heat. It's cute to have love sick Turbo and he has one of the best upside down dance sequences ever. They recreate that shack so well that it's almost a perfect transition between the real world shack and the rotating one. The only truly awkward transition happens when Lucia walks into the room. She's stuck to the wall when Turbo is dancing upside down. This sequel is a cheesier effort highlighted by that one awesome dance sequence and a sequel title for the history books. Ice-T does return to do more rapping.