Breakin' 2

Breakin’: Electric Boogaloo is an audio-visual holocaust, the viewing of which will test just how much the viewer is willing to put up with. Drowned somewhere in this quagmire of awkwardness and gaudiness there are clearly likeable, attractive and perhaps even charismatic performers, but it’s hard to recognise them through all of the terrible clothes, sleazy hairstyles, repulsive pubescent moustaches, headbands and tacky earrings. At its core, Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo actually has the same foundations as the recent Let’s Dance movies; it is simply a classic format shaped in accordance with the current trend. Whereas Grease, for example, may be timeless thanks to its exaggeration and retro stylisation, Breakin’ 2 shows what awaits contemporary dance hits a few decades from now. Not only will they be outdated as a form of sincere adoration for and promotion of the fashion of the day, but audiences will shake their heads in disbelieving amazement at the horrors these people were wearing and the ridiculous physical creations that they were convinced were astonishingly cool. Furthermore, thanks to its distant and disbelieving gaze, Breakin’ 2 exposes the monstrous manipulativeness of fashion films, which actually work like any other indoctrination propaganda, as they primarily target a young audience, ideally children, in order to get them hooked and thus ensure their continuity. On the other hand, trends in fashion and music fortunately have a shorter lifespan than various religions and nationalistic ideologies, so they don’t pose as much of a danger, because the vast majority of people will simply grow out of them, just like the stars of the Breakin’ franchise. Breakin’ transformed from a clichéd fashion-dance flick into not only a telling memento of the transience of trends, but also a confirmation of how fine the line is between coolness or stylishness and physically unpleasant awkwardness. All of the evil of the 1980s has never been so essentially imprinted on celluloid as it is here. (18/01/2015)