In the ‘70s and ‘80s, the ideas of Breakdancing were being introduced to the world and were taking the world by storm on the streets with the increasing popularity of hip-hop music. With its increasing popularity, the movie Breakin’ was released in theaters worldwide in 1984.
The film told of a girl who gets into the world of Breakdancing and how they eventually grab the attention of some high society snobbish dance competition judges. It basically served as a way to show off a bunch of dance moves that are pretty forgettable even when you just saw them. It also set up a film genre that has been copied many other times down the road.
Less than a year later, the sequel was released and wasn’t met with much success except from some minor praise from a few critics like Armond White (Not Surprising) and oddly Roger Ebert. So, since I looked at the first film, I figured I might as well take a look at the film’s sequel: Electric Boogaloo.
We again follow Kelly, Ozone, and Turbo as they dance against a rival gang who is threatening their territory. Eventually, they realize that there local hangout is about to be demolished. So they decide to do a Fundraiser/Dance Competition to help raise money to save the building.
The plot of the film was pretty much the creation of the standard story-arch for some generic dance movies and bland sports movies, especially the whole idea of saving a beloved building. It’s been done many MANY times and it makes the film completely predictable. With that being the center plot point, you can guess the entire film just at the beginning.
Just like the first film, the sequel is filled with dance scenes.
They dance while competing against a rival gang, they dance to raise money for their recreational center, and they dance just because they’re bored. Pretty much, the characters just exist to dance. Much like the first film, the main purpose of the film is just to show off the dance moves. All I can really say is that they didn’t impress me very much. They looked like they belonged to the first film and they just used the ones that didn’t make it into the film.
The film, much like the first one, has a large use of Hip Hop throughout the film. The songs sounded a lot like the songs you would hear in the first film and were used only in the dance scenes. They were very generic and sounded all the same and I don’t think anybody would recognize any of them.
As I mentioned before, the characters in this film pretty much exist just to dance. We don’t get any development for Ozone, Kelly, and Turbo except for the fact that it’s hinted that Ozone and Kelly might develop a relationship together. In the end, it doesn’t add much to the characters. The construction company are generic villain characters who see it as a good thing that the building should be destroyed. Overall, they are all just as bland as a dry piece of Toast.
The film was known to start a bit of a trend. The subtitle of the film, Electric Boogaloo, apparently started up trends of films having a ridiculous subtitle which also suggests that the film was entirely pointless or unsuccessful and it’s been often used and parodied many times. Oddly, this was the one thing that I thought was interesting about the film.
Final Thoughts: It’s Dull. It’s pretty much the first film with a partially different situation. There’s not much else to say about it really. It was basically was just a film that exists for no real reason. I don’t think Breakin’ even did well enough to warrant a sequel…Let alone a third film…which I’m probably going to look at some time soon.
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