Breakin'

1984Flashdance rip-off

Rating: 4/20 (Abbey: 18/20. "I liked all the moves and the dancing." She originally gave it a 1/20.)

Plot: Kelly is a waitress and wanna-be dancer in L.A. who is having difficulty making it big. She accompanies her homosexual boyfriend to the beach to watch some street dancers, busts a move herself, and leaves with the nickname Special K. She teams up with Turbo and Ozone, two flamingly homosexual urban break dancers, to defeat a duo featuring a blatantly homosexual guy and a more subdued homosexual. A 12-year-old Ice-T raps. They become the dance champions of the streets, but can they win over the stuffy white judges and win a real dance contest? You bet! This wouldn't be a movie from the 80's if they couldn't!

This was a movie so good that the sequel was actually mentioned in the credits. It's hard to miss when you have actors who go by the names of Shabba-Doo and Boogaloo Shrimp. It's got other things going for it, too: lots of people doing the robot, Jean-Claude Van Damme's debut, a sex scene (well, nearly) between a Boogaloo Shrimp and a broom, a character named Bruno Pop 'n' Taco, lotsa fresh dancing, and some of the most absurd trash-talk dialogue you'll ever hear. So completely dated (there's no way it couldn't be) and not nearly as capable of giving that feeling of nostalgia as I thought it would be. I expected to be transported back to my days in elementary school where we'd drag our big piece of cardboard and boombox outside during recess and injure ourselves while listening to the only cassette my friend Brad had--the Eagles' One of Those Nights. This was tepid enough to be a Disney movie. The worst offense of Breakin'? The dancing isn't even any good!

Here are Abbizzle staring our Saturday morning off by enjoying Bruno Pop 'n' Taco's moves: