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Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo is nowadays used as a punchline for unnecessary sequels. Released a mere 7 months after Breakin’ this movie has rightfully become the target of ridicule. It’s possibly one of the most shameless cash grabs in movie history. An impressive feat considering the first movie was also a pure cash grab of a movie.
Breakin’ 2 picks up a couple of months after the events of the first movie. After their street jazz show the three lead characters Kelly, Turbo and Ozone have parted ways. Kelly is being pushed by her wealthy parents to go to a prestigious college. Kelly herself want to focus on becoming a professional dancer. Meanwhile Turbo and Ozone work in a community recreation center teaching kids how to dance and keeping them of the streets.
But as screen writing rules dictate; when you introduce a building as a central character there has to be an evil developer who wants to demolish it in order to build something else. Something that resembles capitalism. In this case it’s a mall, which considering it’s 80s, makes perfect sense.
After a fallout with her parents Kelly decides to visit Turbo and Ozone. She’s just in time to see how important the recreation center is to the community. As a true white savior she will help them raise the money to keep the community center. This will require dancing. A whole lot of dancing.
One of the fun aspects of Breakin’ 2 is that almost every main actor from the previous movie returns. Even Ice-T is back in what I think is the same role. In both movies he MC’s in a club, so I’m pretty sure it’s the same character. Only Christopher McDonald is absent, though he was only a supporting character in the previous movie.
Breakin’ 2 has one standout dance scene and it once again features Turbo (Michael Chambers). This time he literally dances on a ceiling. It’s a cool segment which utilizes a set that is able to rotate giving the impression that the laws of gravity do no apply to him. It’s the most memorable moment in a movie which feels rushed the majority of its running time.
In musicals and dance movies the song and dance numbers are used to progress the story. But Breakin’ 2 rarely does that, making the dance scenes often feel like filler. Let’s take the first dance scene of the movie for example. Six minutes into the movie Kelly is reunited with Ozone and Turbo as Ozone’s house. They tell her about Miracles, the community center, say they will take her there. This leads into a three minute dance scene in which the entire neighborhood is dancing on the streets as they walk and dance from Ozone’s house to Miracles. In any other movie this would have been a simple cut from one scene to the next.
Breakin’ 2 is full of these dance scenes. Scenes that drag out the story rather than progress it. This makes the movie occasionally a chore to sit through, because once you’ve seen one breakdance routine, you’ve seen them all.
Luckily the movie throws in a couple of more ambitious dance scenes than just some people poppin’ and lockin’ under an overpass. Aside from the aforementioned rotating room scene there’s also a large dance number set in a hospital which stands out. It features some sexy nurses reviving a flat-lining man by dancing. What’s not to love about that?
The lack of a story and the fact that the solution or answer to everything is dancing makes this movie unintentionally hilarious. A beef with a rival gang is resolved by doing a dance off. A group of bulldozers is trying to tear down the community. What better way to prevent this than by busting out some moves in front of and on these machines?
Breakin’ 2 is a colorful cartoon, not an actual movie. There is little to no character development and the movie ends with most of the characters in the same place they were at the beginning of the movie. But it’s hard to get mad at the movie, because the people on screen really put their heart and soul into the movie. This might have been a cash grab for Cannon films, but not for the people making it.
