User Reviews

Lorenzo Lamas, the karate guy from the PM movies? It would have been something to see Don the Dragon Wilson in a dance movie.

Is that Ritchie from 'The Wanderers?' It appears that he's formed an underground 'Beat Street' graffiti gang after those boys vacated the basement.

If I'm not mistaken, is that Danny Wood there? He was quick to quit 'Body Rock' after this wrapped up and joined NKOTB as fast as he could. I can't blame him.

So, Tony Manero graduated from disco and is now scouring the basement from 'Beat Street' in search of a new fad, is he?

"Who's in the mood for some fresh breakin'?" I guess. If you say so, guy. Who else is down?

A rent-a-crowd gathers in the 'Beat Street' basement and watches a bunch of gnarly college grads doing all sorts of aerial moves, and was that Steve Urkel back there?

Who's the nuggety, thick white guy here sporting the moustache in sweats? He looks like he should be a blocker for Buffalo.

Okay, I'm not feeling it, 'Body Rock.'

This rent-a-crowd was the same one hired at the end of 'Purple Rain' from the looks of it. Body rocking or body hopping?

Tony Manero meets the love interest early - his best friend's sister - and she's a Teri Hatcher clone in her own quirky way.

Holy crap, the robot from 'Rocky 4?' Not that again. I don't want to be reminded of Uncle Paulie's pansexual fetishes.

Tony Manero plays an unemployed bum who attends job interviews in rags and suspenders handed down to him by Ozone as he's such a charity case freeloader.

This movie's pulse is on life support after only a few minutes. What fresh breakin'?

There's no atmosphere, and the soundtrack so far is poorly chosen.

Tony Manero convinces a talent scout to access his crew for potential future gigs, and this is exactly what Kenny's agent did in 'Beat Street.' What was it again? "Come down to the Roxy," or something?

Is that Vanilla Ice rapping on stage there with Manero? They can't flow for shish kebabs, and it comes across as too mono, like it's a school pageant for shy boys.

This is just spare room-in-hell stuff. I hope it picks up the slack. It's downright boring. Where's the sound? It doesn't help that it's in 260p quality either.

Rocky brings Adrian to his shabby apartment again, and little is she aware that his other girlfriend is asleep in another room.

This movie can only be identified through DNA or dental records.

What's anyone's objective or reason for getting out of bed in this movie?

Are all these actors intentionally unenthused because they didn't make the cut to be in 'Beat Street?' Come on, look alive, movie!

Look, is that not Travoltra from 'Staying Alive' right there? I rest my case.

Decomposed body rot.

"It don't bother me, 'cause I'm tough."

It's Daft Punk and that annoying "Around the World" song again.

What is this?

Let the bodies drop.

Yo? What, are you in grade school? Didn't some singer say in that MTV Rapumentary, "It's not yo, what's up, dude? It's all about intelligence, in-telligence," then went on to sing, "Yo, 'cause I'm the teacher, your Scott is a scholar?" Intelligent, eh?

I have 50 more minutes of this crap to go.

There's nothing to report.

It's just a bunch of unemployed college graduates refusing to work for a living and trying to secure a music or dance contract to make it on Broadway, but they have no actual skill or talent. They're just bombers and bums.

The only reason I'm going to give this a 1/10 rating is because of the title song.

Around the 45-minute mark, 'Body Rock' tries to be 'The Warriors' for a short time, then Tony Manero advertises his new trench coat directly to the camera like it's a commercial. Don't play to the crowd, you fool. You're supposed to be in a motion picture, not acknowledging a live TV audience.

I may have missed it, but with no talent, Tony Manero somehow secures a contract, becomes 'Rocky 2' and buys fancy clothes, then decides to let it all go to his head and cheats on his new girlfriend, dumps his second girlfriend, and moves in with an over-50s model from Fort Lauderdale.

Hey, Mr. Director, fella? Did you ever hear that song, "Wake up, you're asleep at the wheel?" Well, were you?

It's Perry from 'The Wanderers.' So, he didn't last long in San Francisco and raced back to the east coast as fast as he could, eh? I bet it was that pipsqueak, Joey, who drove him to drink after only a few days.

This has to be the worst thing I've watched in 2023.

What is this "Smooth Talking" solo, and why is he sweating so badly when he's just standing there idle? Nervous, are we, guy?

"I'm gonna stuff you like an animal and eat you like a cannibal." Really?

Um, Tony Manero goes solo, ditches his Body Rock crew, and somehow makes it to the top overnight with that one song, "Smooth Talking." Now the world's at his feet, and he's #1 on the charts with an EP coming out this April Fool's Day.

Decomposed deposit sketches.

Is this movie for real?

I probably owe 'Breakin' and 'Breakin' 2' an apology for mocking them in my past two reviews.

Tony Manero loses it all in a day, though, because the CEO of Clown Records gets fresh with him, so he punches him out and causes a ruckus over it.

Manero mopes into depression as his star only shines for a day. Burning all his bridges, even the Over 50s slag severs ties with the loser.

Is this the part where he jumps on a Septa and gets off at Allegheny in search of Needle Park's harvested veterinarian medicine and becomes an addict?

Where are all the opposing gangs of New York to knock some sense into this clown? Are Body Rock the only bad boys in town?

Tony Manero becomes a pariah and just broods around in his only trench coat like a loser.

Not one thing in this movie has elevated my heart rate so far.

Again with the "Smooth Talking" crap? You're looping repeats already, movie? Aren't there any other songs?

Tony Manero takes a stage performer hostage at the end, and a siege unfolds but soon turns into a concert for criminals and hooligans where everyone starts celebrating human rights violations, or something, I dunno. I'm bamboozled. This movie is an enigma. It's baseless.

Adrian enters the ring at the end again and tells Rocky that she's totally devoted to his cheating ways, and this movie's climax is an impotent explosion of no moisture with a bonus rubber chicken in a stocking full of coal and a cooked turkey delivered DOA and thirty minutes late.

'Body Rock' surely has to be the hot favorite to take out the next Razzie Award.

WHAT TRASH.

Be careful not to tread in this one, people. You'd be better off watching 'Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny.'

In the fine tradition of early hip hop culture movies such as Rappin' (1985), Breakin' (1984), Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo (1984), Beat Street (1984), Wild Style (1983), and Style Wars (1984), (not to mention super-80's-NYC films like Mixed Blood (1984), Alphabet City (1984) and even Gloria (1980)), although definitely more akin to the first four films mentioned above, Body Rock is a more-than-worthy companion to those more well-known films.

Loaded with awesomely amazing 80's New York style and energy, Body Rock is completely winning fun.

Chilly D (Lamas) is a kid (?) from the New York City streets who doesn't have a lot of money, but he has a big dream: to make it big with his crew of dancers and rappers, the Body Rock Crew. Through some streetwise tenacity, as well as a lucky break or two, Chilly achieves his dream: but at what cost? He stops "keeping it real" and starts spending all his time with these uptown snobs, forgetting his downtown roots. He even moves out of his old neighborhood and into a ritzy loft with his new, snobby lady...causing a rift between him and his true love, Darlene, not to mention alienating the entirety of his once-beloved Body Rock Crew. Will Chilly lose his soul and become a sellout? Or will he reconnect with his roots, and pop-and-lock his way into glory?

EVERYTHING about Body Rock is so incredibly great:

THE MUSIC is infectious, toe-tappin' fun (assuming you don't jump out of your seat and start breakin' right there on the floor), which actually, maybe because there wasn't a whole lot of available rap music at the time, encompasses a wide variety of genres: rap, dance, new wave and even powerpop are represented (Baxter Robertson's should-have-been-an-MTV-hit "Vanishing Point" and Dwight Twilley's - yes, Dwight Twilley! - "Why You Wanna Break My Heart").

THE FASHIONS: Where to begin? The whole movie is a whirlwind of half-shirts, zippers, vests with writing on them, multi-colored socks and Converse sneakers, leather, suspenders, headbands, bandannas, and on and on. The eye is truly dazzled by the clothes alone. Other highlights include Chilly's leather trenchcoat, symbolizing his new hoity-toityness, but still has "CHILLY" graffiti'd on the back, and Darlene's outfits, which either have letters or numbers stenciled on them. Not to mention the bouncer at the club, "Big Daddy", a man so obese, all the rules of the club are printed on the front of this shirt. I barely even scratched the surface. You have to see this for yourself!

THE DANCING is nonstop: the film, while not a musical, is structured similarly - every 10 minutes or so there is a song and a dance sequence. No one is really here for the plot or the acting, so these are the best parts of the movie. This was director Marcelo Epstein's only feature film, as he is primarily known as a music video director, and here it shows very well. "Body Rock" is almost like a feature-length video, and I mean that in the best possible sense. A MAJOR highlight of the film is the show-stopping "skeleton dance" which is truly awesome. It might be the first case in movie history of "day-glo-slo-mo". Also the huge boombox set of the final "rapstravaganza" where Chilly has to prove himself is very impressive as well. The little boy, "Magik" gets off some great moves and is very charming, especially when he's teaching Chilly how to dance, including the fan-favorite "sit-down dance". Also, the dancer in Chilly's crew that looks like "Reno 911"'s Thomas Lennon gives it all he's got and proves you can be a middle-aged white guy with a wife, kids and a mustache and still lay down some funky moves. In addition to the actors, some real-life breakers, such as the NYC Breakers are shown doin' their thing.

NYC LOCATIONS: Keepin' it street, there are a lot of great NYC locations, captured beautifully in all their 80's glory for the world to see. From Brooklyn, to Times Square (where Once Upon a Time in the West and Romancing the Stone are playing at a movie theatre, I think where the Virgin Megastore is now, but I could be wrong), to Washington Square Park, and, poignantly, the World Trade Center Towers, and many other places in between, this lends a lot of interesting authenticity to the proceedings and delights the eye along with everything else about "Body Rock".

From the opening of the film, when the Body Rock Crew are dancing their way across the street, to the spray painting of the subway cars, to the dance sequences, to the training sequences, to Chilly's "downfall" where he becomes a pot-smoking lowlife, to the final "Rapstravaganza", you MUST see "Body Rock". It's layer upon layer upon layer of impenetrable 80's awesomeness. Especially if you are an 80's freak like me, you will have a lot to feast on with the great and underrated "Body Rock". Don't just watch it tonight -- LIVE it tonight!

When I first saw this movie, I thought this movie was excellent. It gave me the same sense of an exciting dance movie that Saturday Night Fever delivered.

I do not understand all the negative reviews, some people are hard to please out there or they would probably like something that I would probably think mediocre or uninteresting.

This movie was interesting. It had a good storyline and I could relate to the character of Chili. Similar to Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever.

This movie was as good as Saturday Night Fever if not better. It deserved more popularity worldwide given how big a global smash hit Saturday Night Fever was. Lorenzo Lamas' character was as interesting as John Travolta's. Both playing young charismatic artistically very talented but down and out men struggling in New York trying to use their considerable talent to get the big break in life that will open a door to a better life. I think we all can relate to those aspirations. Like in Saturday Night Fever we get a glimpse of New York life and the party night life of the late 1970s and Body Rock in early to mid 1980s of these affable and good hearted young people trying to make it in life despite their challenges. This movie had a wonderful 80s dance music soundtrack and great dancing as good as if not at times better than Saturday Night Fever which was released 7 years earlier. I really like the young characters in this movie. They were good people who refused to be screwed by the music business. There were good acting performances all round. I since learned that the attractive partner of Chilli played by Michelle Nicastro passed away in November 2010 at the middle age of 50. May she rest in peace she was a fine actress in 1980s TV and Film drama. Sadly many talented young actors, actresses and Music stars of that era have passed away in the 21st century as that decade recedes further and further into the mists of history. However the music and movies of the 1980s will long into the future. I am talking hundreds of years into the future, yes the 1980s were that good, as future generations discover what an exciting decade in history in music, fashion, culture, drama, tv, movies and art the 1980s were. There will never be another decade like it it was unique.

I give this fine movie from the 1980s 10/10