Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo is a 1984 movie about breakdancing, and a sequel to the same year's (you heard us, the same year) Breakin.
Kelly, Ozone, and Turbo are members of a group of street kids that frequent the community center Miracles, where they're working over the summer. But a greedy land developer is planning to bulldoze Miracles and build a shopping center! The kids must band together to save their neighborhood. At the same time, Kelly and Ozone must deal with their conflicted feelings toward each other, as Kelly considers taking an acting job in Paris, and Turbo embarks on a quest to find a girl. That's pretty much it; most of the movie is just corny, entertaining dancing.
The movie was a pretty big flop, and regarded as an entirely unnecessary sequel; today, it's best known for spawning the "Electric Boogaloo" joke, used to refer to any pointless or strangely-named sequel. The 2014 documentary about the film's producers would take its name from here.
Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo provides examples of the following tropes:
- The Cameo: Ice-T appears at the end, reprising his role from the first Breakin'. This was before he was all that famous.
- Dancing Is Serious Business: Basically every conflict in the film is settled via dancing. This includes a rumble between two street gangs.
- Dance Party Ending: Naturally. Right alongside the Dance Party Beginning and Dance Party Middle!
- Denser and Wackier: Sure, the first film featured the classic "pinning of all hopes and dreams on succeeding on a dance audition," but this one ratcheted up the crazy by not only using breakdancing as a means to save the perpetually-imperiled youth center, but also as a form of combat. No, not like a Dance Battler, but rather two teams of enemies facing off, breakdancing, and then deciding —as a group— who won the battle. What, do you think we're kidding?
- Excuse Plot: The incredibly flimsy plot is little more than a reason for the movie to exist. 90% of it is taken up by dancing scenes!
- Filching Food for Fun: Midway into the film, Turbo ends up stealing the workers' lunches, and gets rightly punished by falling down a flight of stairs, breaking his leg.
- Hey, Let's Put on a Show: How the patrons of Miracles hope to save it.
- Imagine Spot: Ozone and Turbo dance with a doll, and Ozone sees it as Kelly and Rhonda.
- Market-Based Title: Following the first film being released in some international markets as Breakdance, this film was released in some international locations as Breakdance 2, either with or without the "Electric Boogaloo" subtitle.
- Oddly Named Sequel 2: Electric Boogaloo: Trope Namer! In this case the title is a reference to the "electric boogaloo", a dancing style associated with 1970s hip-hop (which was just emerging), and to the signature dance style of a real-life dancing crew called "The Electric Boogaloos" (established in 1977). The dancing crew themselves were named after the song "Do a Boogaloo" by James Brown. Brown himself based the song on the Boogaloo, a style of Latin music and dance from the 1960s. The Boogaloo as a genre was a combination of elements from Soul, rhythm and blues, mambo, and son cubano. It was popularized in the United States through performances in American Bandstand.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Much like the first movie, "Turbo" and "Ozone" are called by those names rather than their real names. This time, Kelly's mom comments on their "uniqueness."
- Ripped from the Headlines: The film was inspired by real-life events. The Radio-Tron, a youth center near MacArthur Park, Los Angeles, faced demolition. Youth director Carmelo Alvarez rallied the youth and community to march to Los Angeles City Hall and try to save the Radio-Tron.
- Rule of Drama: There's really no point to the Unresolved Love Triangle subplot with Kelly and that other girl, other than this.
- Same Language Dub: According to director Sam Firstenberg, Sabrina García's voice was so weak that she could barely be heard on the audio track. That is why her lines were dubbed by another actor. Garcia did speak Spanish and English.
- Saving the Orphanage: The plot, such as it is.
- Sequel Non-Entity: James, from the original Breakin', is totally absent in this movie. His actor Christopher McDonald declined to return.
- Title Drop: One of the songs in the movie has the words "electric boogaloo," spoken by an electronic voice, as the hook.
