Main Cast: Lucinda Dickey, Adolpho "Shabba Doo" Quinones, Michael Chambers, Susie Bono, Harry Caesar
Release Year: 1984
Country: US
Run Time: 94 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG
Plot
Breakdancing, hip-hop, rap, and a good time are the main stars of this standard teen movie about youths trying to raise money to save their community club from being razed for a shopping mall. Ozone (Adolfo Quiñones) and Turbo (Michael Chambers) are two master breakdancers who have started a community club to teach other teens how to manage the acrobatics of the dance without literally breaking anything. Their efforts create some choreographed, group breakdancing that is rather innovative. But an evil developer (Peter MacLean) sees their property as ideal for a shopping mall project -- and a crooked politician is willing to back him up for a fee. As the teens do their best to raise money to keep their center, some are also battling with restrictive parents or trying to ease into romantic liaisons that offer their own challenges. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
Review
This sequel to the surprise hit Breakin' is every bit the opportunistic quickie that its sequel status might lead one to suspect. However, that's not a bad thing: Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo knows exactly what its audience wants (i.e. breakdancing, and lots of it) and delivers the goods with relentless energy. The script harkens back to the musicals of the Busby Berkeley era, complete with regular stops for fantasy musical sequences and a "let's put on a show to save our hangout" finale. Characterizations and plotting tend to be pretty inane, but director Sam Firstenberg skips past these hurdles by minimizing those elements in favor of cramming in as many musical set pieces as 90 minutes can hold. Some of these moments are surprisingly inspired, the best being an all-stops-out dance sequence in a hospital ward and an impressive scene in which Ozone dances up the wall and across the ceiling. This breathless approach makes Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo a blast of colorful, kitschy fun that is well worth a look to anyone nostalgic for the era of parachute pants and pop-locking. ~ Donald Guarisco, All Movie Guide
Jo de Winter - Mrs. Bennett; Fred Asparagus - Hispanic Man; Frankie Crocker - Emcee; Kamie Harper - Kid; Ice-T - Radiotron Rapper; Jimmy E. Keegan - Kid; John LaMotta - Policeman; Lu Leonard - Head Nurse; Sandy Lipton - Mrs. Snyder; Peter MacLean - Mr. Douglas; Kimberly McCullough - Kimberly; Ken Olfson - Randall; Jay Rasumny - Hardhat; Shabba-Doo; Jerry Lazarus - Paris Director; Don Lewis - Magician; Herb Mitchell - Stanley; Nick Segal - Derek; Tim Wise - Doctor; William Cort - Howard Howard; Jim W. Jones - Bulldozer Driver; Sam Livneh - Dancer; Richard Gross - Juggler
Credit
Pat Tagliaferro - Art Director, Bill Goodson - Choreography, Dorothy Baca - Costume Designer, David Womark - First Assistant Director, Sam Firstenberg - Director, Bert Glatstein - Editor, Marcus Manton - Editor, Barry Zetlin - Editor, Michael Linn - Composer (Music Score), Joseph T. Garrity - Production Designer, Pat Tagliaferro - Production Designer, Hanania Baer - Cinematographer, Yoram Globus - Producer, Menahem Golan - Producer, Jerie Kelter - Set Designer, Sam Firstenberg - Screenwriter, Julia Reichert - Screenwriter
Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo is the sequel to the 1984 breakdancingfilmBreakin'. It was released the same year as its predecessor by Cannon Films. In some international locations, the movie was released under the title Breakdance 2: Electric Boogaloo.
Breakin' 2 sees the return of Kelly (Lucinda Dickey), Ozone (Adolfo Quinones), and Turbo (Michael Chambers) as they try to stop a developer from bulldozing a community recreation center. The film also features dancer Viktor Manoel and a very young Ice-T who returned from the original, as well as an appearance by future pop starMartika. Ice-T can be seen in the film throughout, he is in a scene at a hip/hop night club where he raps one of the songs from the soundtrack as well as in the final dance scene where he performs and even dances along with the rest of the choreographed dance.
Since the release of the film, the unusual title suffix "Electric Boogaloo," a reference to a funk-oriented dance style from the 1970s, has become a commonly used snowclone concerning sequels.[1] The implications vary, but tend to imply a sequel that is ridiculous, absurd, unwanted, unnecessary, formulaic, or simply obscure.[2][3]Roger Ebert gave the film a fairly positive review but did not assign a stars-rating to it.[4]
Like its predecessor, much of the film's soundtrack was provided by Ollie & Jerry, comprising the duo Ollie Brown and Jerry Knight. The title track, "Electric Boogaloo," did not hit the pop charts and climbed to only #45 on the R&B chart.[5]
