Breakin'
2: Electric Boogaloo (1/2
star)
review by Jon
Waterman
Turbo and Ozone are back and dancy-er than ever! This time,
they are in danger of losing a youth center that they renovated
and currently teach break dancing in. Some fat cat is looking
to tear it down so that he can build a mall or something more
profitable in it’s place. He convinces the government
that the building is not up to code and should be demolished.
The only hope of saving it is to put on a break dancing show
in the community so that they can raise the money necessary
to make the repairs. Under such rigorous time constraints,
can dancing really save the day?
Director Sam Firstenberg takes over where Joel Silberg left
off. Except Sam dropped the simple hand-off. Paired with cinematographer
Hanania Baer, he tries too hard to be cool and trendy. The
first clue is the overabundance of fish-eye lens shots (complete
with characters purposefully looking into the camera, making
it seem like a documentary crew should have been incorporated
into the plot). There’s also the rotating room sequence.
These splashes of pizzazz can only cover up the movie’s
otherwise lack of ability to entertain. And the lack of story.
There are probably only about twenty pages of actual scripted
dialogue in the film. It’s complete with standard villains,
predictable jokes and situations and an awkward, unfruitful
(and un-understandable) love triangle subplot. Written by first
and last timers Jan Ventura and Julie Reichert, it reaches
the length of a feature film only by incorporating the strangest
and most out of place song and dance sequences imaginable.
Like a virus, break dancing infects everyone that is unfortunate
to come across its path. The kids take to the streets and take
with it cops, firemen, old people and other passersby. When
they aren’t randomly assembling for a constantly moving
party, they’ll abandon the plot for some spur of the
moment dancing.
The sad part of it is that the dancing isn’t as good
as in the first film. The little kids, who are more prominent
this time around, are still awesome and a lot of fun to watch,
but most of the stuff is rather tame. It’s hard to imagine
that this sequel can be any lamer than “Breakin’” yet
here we are. The directing is worse, the dancing isn’t
as cool, the story is rather crappy and the acting….
The saying goes, you can only go up from here, but whoever
said that forgot about staying at the same sub-par level. Actually,
it probably did get worse, because we take away the helpful
agent character and add a non-English speaking love interest
for Turbo. I hope they got some draft picks with that trade.
Simply put, the boogaloo wasn’t electric enough for my
taste. Now, who wants to run into the street and have a roaming
dance party?!
respond to jon@filmbrats.com
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