Movie Info
Movie Name: Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo
Studio: Cannon Films
Genre(s): Musical/Drama/Comedy
Release Date(s): Movie Release Date
MPAA Rating: PG
Nothing like bringing your dance to the hospital!
Kelly (Lucinda Dickey) has become a moderately successful dancer as Ozone (Adolfo Quiñones) and Turbo (Michael Chambers) have taken to helping a local youth center. When the youth center is threatened by a ruthless industrialist named Douglas (Peter MacLean) determined to turn it into a mall, Special K, Ozone, and Turbo once must again join forces in an attempt to save the rec center from destruction…even if it means fighting city hall!
Directed by Sam Firstenberg, Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo is a sequel to the surprise hit Breakin’ (also of 1984). The movie was released to worse reviews than the previous entry and its subtitle “Electric Boogaloo” became a joke title often tied to unnecessary sequels.
Growing up, my friends and I would put “Electric Boogaloo” on movies all the time…it really didn’t matter about the quality…Rambo 2: Electric Boogaloo, Exorcist 2: Electric Boogaloo, Police Academy 2: Electric Boogaloo, etc…it really works for anything. Despite that, I never saw Breakin’ 2, and there is good reason.
Yes….angry face dancer is back!
Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo has all the bad aspects of Breakin’ and modifies them into an afterschool special. You have the maniacal white developer who pretty much just wants to trash the kids’ rec center (the only thing keeping them off the streets, away from drugs, and a life of crime) and parents that believe that black people are ruining their perfect white daughter. It is all problems that probably couldn’t be solved in years, months, or lifetimes, but everyone learns a lesson in the end and everything turns out ok…all in an hour and a half. It feels like it is made for a four-year-old.
The cast continues to struggle with acting. I can give Michael Chambers and Adolfo Quiñones a pass since they are pretty talented dancers, but Lucinda Dickey under-wows with her dances and can’t act. Peter MacLean might as well have evil laughter in each scene since he too is a cardboard cut-out. Ice T returns as “the rapper”, but I’m just happy that angry-dance face Sabrina Garcia is back.
What a feeling when we’re breakin’ on the ceiling
For the most part the movie also feels like a step down…I say for the most part because there is one scene that is better than both movies. The dance around ceiling scene with Ozone looks great and works with breakdancing (it was shot in the same rotating house used for A Nightmare on Elm Street).
Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo is so-bad-it-is-good. Much like the first movie, the movie just doesn’t even make sense at points…are they dancing or fighting? Is this all symbolic? The movie doesn’t seem to know or even try to explain. Just sit back and wallow in the glory and wonder of the Electric Boogaloo. A semi-sequel (with only Ice T in an uncredited role) called Rappin’ was released in 1985.
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