Ho-hum hip hop

Planet B-Boy looks at the state of breakdancing today, but can’t find an interesting story to tell

BORING BREAKING: Planet B-Boy

by MARK SLUTSKY

Some 30 years after it was born in the South Bronx, four elements of hip hop—breakdancing, graffiti, DJing and MCing—are as popular as ever, at least among documentarians. Recent docs like Scratch (turntablism), NEXT: A Primer on Urban Painting (graffiti) and Freestyle: The Art of Rhyme (guess) have celebrated the culture’s creativity and stylistic diversity, and let’s not forget how tied up hip hop has been with the form ever since 1983’s Style Wars.

Benson Lee’s Planet B-Boy looks at the world of breakdancing, which, in the 1980s, was as responsible as anything else for hip hop’s mainstream breakthrough. But, perhaps aware that so many of the stories have been told already, Lee doesn’t focus on the ’70s and ’80s, giving only a very cursory history of the form (one that seems to deliberately distance breakdancing from rapping, an annoying attitude that comes up repeatedly in the film) before jumping into the modern day.

See, ever since 1990, the German “Battle of the Year” competition has attracted dancers from all over the world. Decades after its heyday, B-Boying is no longer the property of Americans alone, with dancers of Korean, Japanese, French, Australian and other nationalities getting in on the action.

Planet B-Boy follows four teams as they prepare for the 2005 competition, and try as it might, it just can’t find an interesting story to tell in the lead-up to the event. Some dudes have personal issues, but none of them really are compelling, and by the 15th time you’ve heard a dancer’s flaky philosophizing about the art, you just want the competition to be over with, already.

The problem is that there are no real stakes here, unless you’ve got some deep personal investment in the results of a 2005 German breakdancing competition. The dancing itself is beautiful to watch, but it doesn’t compel.

Lee fails to make the case that the dancers are interesting enough or the art form itself is relevant enough to care about—you might as well be watching a swing dancing competition. Unless you’re really fanatical about b-boying and need to experience every aspect of the culture, I’d give this one a miss.

Planet B-Boy opens this
Friday, Aug. 1

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