BREAKDANCE 2 - ELECTRIC BOOGALOO

US, 1984, 89 minutes, Colour.
Lucinda Jenney.
Directed by Sam Firstenberg.

Breakdance 2 - Electric Boogaloo was made within months of the quick release and extraordinary box office success of the original Breakdance. Breakdance achieved great popularity in 1983.

The film takes up the same characters, taking their characterisation for granted - and just gives us more of the same, genial and welcome as it is. There is also, of course, a great deal of breakdancing. However, there are fewer social crisis within the groups and the characters than in the original. This time the group seems to be quite well-established and is fighting City Hall. In fact, the plot-line was old when Mickey Rooney was a boy - it is the same as, for instance, Busby Berkeley's Babes on Broadway. A wealthy builder conspires with authorities to pull down the theatre which the youngsters are using for training and dancing and recreation etc. The breakdancers decide to raise money to save it, they prepare to put on a breakdancing concert. Naturally, they raise the money to save the building, force the builder to back down on television and to give a donation of $10,000 and the heroine's parents chip in the final $50,000.

It all ends with dancing - and the strong applause from the young audiences for which it was intended.

In fact, Breakdance 2 is very traditional (in modern clothes), tells the same old story, preserves the same basic values, is critical of the same exploiters in our society.