Thekissing booth 3 brings a lackluster and disjointed conclusion to the franchise in the most one-dimensional way possible. DigitalEditor Holly Pittaway takes a look back at The Kissing Booth, a fun-yet-trashy Netflix Original rom-com that's sure to spice up life in lockdown. Film Critic Amelia Neath reviews Munich - The Edge of War, arguing that it lacks the purpose and suspense necessary for a good war film. Review: C'mon C'mon Unlikemany other sequels, The Kissing Booth 2 is better than its original. However, this teen romance is not the one to question and to assert its revolutionised ideas, but trying to be a part of contemporary cinema, perhaps recognising how its original lacked and ignored many of the ideas of inclusivity. King and Elordi's chemistry is given TheKissing Booth movie came out 8 more years after the novel; building the entire plot on a kissing booth at that point (& especially having it be the showstopper of the whole prom when it only TheKissing Booth 3. Netflix. Baru-baru ini salah satu film original Netflix berjudul "The Kissing Booth 3" telah resmi dirilis. Film tersebut melanjutkan kesuksesan dua film sebelumnya yang dirilis pada 2018 dan 2020 lalu. "The Kissing Booth 3" pun dipastikan menjadi film terakhir dari franchise tersebut. mDZGs. Movie Review You can’t help you who love. Or so they say. But is that really true? Take Elle and Lee, for instance. They’re best friends … thanks to their mothers, who were also the best of friends. On top of that, Elle and Lee were born on the same day. They love to hang out. They love to dance. They’re best friends forever. And they’ve created a list of rules to make sure that fact will never change. Friendship, of course, is their top priority. But sometimes rules can be bent, can’t they? Especially if your lifetime crush is your best friend’s older brother, Noah. Right? But Noah’s off limits. At least until a kissing booth—one that’s disguised as a school fundraiser—changes all the rules. Suddenly, Elle must decide what’s more important friendship or love. Positive Elements Elle and Lee share a sweetly close friendship. And the rule sheet they came up with when they were young has indeed helped their friendship to thrive over the years. For example, Rule 16 says that your best friend should be able to know what’s going on in your life. And both Elle and Lee are equally protective of one another and try to make each other happy. Rule 18 “Always be happy for your bestie’s successes.” A handful of other guys also have protective attitudes toward Elle. That said, she gradually learns to stick up for herself and tries to get a handle on what’s most valuable in her life as well. Elle also tries to encourage Noah to be a better person. And she faithfully stays by her mother’s side when she’s in the hospital. Lee and Noah’s mother emphasizes the importance of forgiveness. She tells Elle that arguments and disagreements are normal and must be resolved. Noah, for his part, apologizes to his brother and those he has hurt. He also mentions that he’s going to see multiple counselors. Someone chases off bullies for his friend. Spiritual Elements Someone jokes about Miley Cyrus becoming a nun. Sexual Content Despite a few positive moments, The Kissing Booth largely revolves around the theme of teens’ physical relationships with each other. At times, it feels as if Elle is practically looking for opportunities to shed her clothes. At a high school party, for instance, she disrobes down to her bra and underwear. After her pants rip in one scene, she dons a very short skirt that reveals her underwear-clad backside. A guy grabs her there, and Noah crudely quips that she was “asking for it.” She also yells, “My boobs are fantastic!” in a family setting. She’s shown on her bed wearing nothing but a towel. At one point, it almost appears as if she’s unclothed. Elle also struts around in a locker room filled with guys wearing just her bra and a skirt. Noah is also shown wearing next to nothing once, and draped in only a towel elsewhere. His chest is visible. In another scene, he appears to be completely naked, sitting on a chair, and the camera shows everything but his genital region. And we’re not done yet. One morning, Elle wakes up in Noah’s bed and thinks they slept together. He informs her that he slept elsewhere. That scene shows her in his shirt and her underwear. Later, while rolling around on the ground together, she touches his covered crotch, which she says was an “accidental groping.” When Elle and Noah finally begin a relationship, they kiss thanks to the kissing booth and make out a lot. They also take off each other’s shirts and then spend the night together. Elle talks about having had sex with him. They wake up outside covered in blankets. Elle is shown buying condoms. We see her on top of Noah, and it looks as though they’re having sex. There are sounds and movements. Elle steals a security tape that has captured video images of her and Noah presumably having sex at school. Though Elle asks herself a lot of questions about her relationship with Noah, in the end she suggests that she’s OK with being just “another one of his conquests.” Elle casually lies to Lee and tells him she was watching porn, and he asks to watch with her. Girls wear bikinis and other revealing outfits, and guys are seen shirtless and in their boxers. The camera zooms in on a guy’s rear end. Lee jokingly says, “Any excuse to cross-dress, and I’m in.” And in one scene, Lee does wear a dress. Two guys have an obvious attraction to each other and dance together. Close-ups show guys and girls kissing including shots that show tongues entangled at the kissing booth. A guy tells a girl not to grind on her love interest’s genitals. A girl talks about getting her first bra and her first period. A guy is called a “perv,” and he texts something inappropriate but we don’t see what it is. A male athlete’s “sports cup” is mentioned. A girl says that kissing gives you cold sores. Other conversations include references to the male and female anatomy. A girl is called a “slut” and a “ho.” Violent Content Noah gets into multiple fist fights. We see him punch a guy in the face several times. Noah is also extremely controlling and aggressive with Elle; at one point he shouts at her and slams his fists in frustration. Lee accuses Noah of hitting Elle though he doesn’t actually do so. Someone dies from cancer. A young boy breaks his leg as a child. Someone falls out of a window. Crude or Profane Language The f-word is used three times, and the s-word more than 10 times. God’s name is misused about half a dozen times. Jesus’ name is misused once. Other profanities include multiple uses of “a–,” “d–k,” “d–mit,” “d–n,” “h—,” “b–ch” and “douche.” Someone exclaims, “Holy crap!” Drug and Alcohol Content High school students attend numerous house and beach parties and drink hard liquor, beer once doing keg stands and shots. No one in the film seems to care that there is a ton of underage drinking going on. Elle gets very drunk at a party. Someone thinks taking an antacid will help a hangover. Other Negative Elements The parents in the film seem to be virtually absent and completely oblivious to their teens’ reckless choices. Elle hides under Noah’s bed at one point after sneaking into his room. Parents’ voices and opinions don’t matter at all, and they’re never around to guide their children or shape their values. At one point, Elle’s dad makes it clear that he doesn’t approve of Noah but tells the young man that it is Elle’s choice. It’s good that he cares about his daughter’s feelings in this one instance, at least, but the rest of the movie makes it seem as if he couldn’t care less and has absolutely no power to speak into Elle’s life or to establish boundaries for her. There’s a lot of lying going on throughout most of the film, especially by Elle. That said, she eventually confesses some things to her father. And Elle will do anything to fit in. Disturbingly, Noah “doesn’t allow” other guys to be anywhere near Elle, even though they’re not even dating. His controlling behavior is normalized throughout the entire film. Girls are rude to one another. Various characters use others for personal gain. Guys and girls sneak around together. A boy sneezes, and mucus flies into a girl’s face. Someone sets off a stink bomb. A boy gets multiple wedgies and is hit in the face with a soccer ball. Conclusion Let’s cut to the chase The Kissing Booth is a disaster on every level. Not only is it a terrible movie artistically currently at 13% on Rotten Tomatoes, it sets an equally terrible example for teens about what constitutes normal adolescent behavior. I’ve seen a lot of movies. But watching this as an adult made me feel very uncomfortable. I didn’t want to see these teenagers taking off their clothes and having sex. I didn’t want to see Elle buying condoms. I didn’t want to see them getting very drunk as if it was the most natural thing in the world. I didn’t want to see Elle’s pseudo-boyfriend treat her like a piece of property. I didn’t want to hear them continually use harsh profanity. Watching this movie also raised a lot of questions for me. Where are the parents throughout this entire film? Why do they seem to have no clue about what’s going on? Why is Elle always taking her clothes off whenever she has the chance? Why is a guy’s sexual harassment dismissed by school officials with a casual detention? And why does no one other than Lee have a problem with how controlling and aggressive Noah is? Like I said The Kissing Booth is a disaster—especially for the target audience Netflix has aimed this TV-14 at. Suffice it to say it’s not appropriate for 14-year-olds … or, really, anyone else, for that matter. Parents, get practical information from a biblical worldview to help guide media decisions for your kids! As I said in my review of the second film, I do not like the Kissing Booth trilogy despite my unashamed love for teen comedy films. What I’ve really disliked about Vince Marcello’s first two attempts at “filmmaking” a term I have always used very lightly with regards to him is how shallowly Marcello portrays everything – both the actual relationships between characters and the so-called “deeper meanings” behind the plot, characters, and actions. What the first two films did have was viewership the Netflix user data obtained via totally legal methods shows that audiences wanted more. I, too, wanted more from this, because I am a masochist who loves watching bad movies, but I also wanted Marcello to improve upon the few redeeming qualities of the sequel, as they showed some potential to make the final installment decent. Based on the sequel, for example, it would have been great if Elle Joey King found enough self-advocacy and self-respect to pursue her own dreams rather than deciding her future according to whose heart she least wanted to break. Somehow, my prayers have been heard and The Kissing Booth 3 luckily offers some change to the formula of the first two films, including a whole new list for Elle and her platonic besite Lee Joel Courtney to exhaust, and a rather late sense of identity that makes it surpass the first two by just a little bit to help teenage audiences reconsider how to determine their own post-high school priorities. The last time we saw Elle, it was March of her senior year, and she had been accepted to two universities UC Berkeley, which she and Lee had always planned to attend, and Harvard, where her kind-of boyfriend Noah Jacob Elordi suggests they get an apartment together. You don’t have to be a collegiate geography expert to recognize these two schools are on opposite sides of the country. Aside from that, Elle does not know exactly what she wants to do with her life, despite being vaguely described as “brilliant” in the way of Disney Channel Original Movie characters. Elle is basing her entire angsty teenage life on which of the two boys pining for her she’d rather choose Noah, or the music school-bound recent transfer student Marco Taylor Zakhar Perez. Her “brilliance” must be underused, as she ought to have more than her naïve teen fantasies to look forward to in college, but alas, the film refuses to give her any dimension other than this face-value brilliance. The entire trilogy has been like this, and it still remains stubbornly content to trade character development and meaningful, relatable growth for worn-out teen-movie clichés, as Elle finds herself mixed up in one petty misunderstanding after another. As in the second film, Elle’s love story fiasco isn’t the only narrative of the third. Just like The Kissing Booth 2s heartfelt scenes with one gay teenager confessing his love for another, the subplot substantially better than the main narrative, only this time it’s rather unexpected. Why unexpected? Because of the character it focuses on after being a single dad for half a dozen years, Mr. Evans Stephen Jennings, Elle’s “cool dad,” is hoping to start another relationship of his own, but Elle is too self-absorbed and misses her mom too much to give her potential future stepmom Linda Bianca Amato a chance, despite her desire to get along with her. Then again, she has her hands full, as she has to get a summer job and choose which college to go to, in addition to finishing up the school year. It’s the summer before she and Lee are supposed to head off to college, and Lee’s mom the always iconic Molly Ringwald, a first-timer in this trilogy who not-so-surprisingly carries her scenes, has decided to sell the beach house. The “kids” this is a debatable term, as no teenager I’ve ever met has a full-on arm tattoo convince her to let them fix it up over the summer, although no one’s fooled they’ve just been handed the keys to the ultimate party pad, and the movie predictably engages with any and all of the ways that might go wrong. Noah’s ex-girlfriend Chloe Maisie Richardson-Sellers crashes with them, causing Elle to get jealous, and she reciprocates by striking things back up with Marco, the boy she kissed in front of Noah in the previous movie. But it all feels pointless are viewers really that worried that either of these rivals will upset the couple? This film has the complexity of a shampoo commercial, and it feels way longer than its 2-hour, 30-minute runtime because of how long these kinds of scenes drag on. Before everyone goes their separate ways, the close-knit trio is determined to make this the most memorable summer ever — which is a recipe for The Kissing Booth 3 to cram in everything a teenager would want to do, from indoor skydiving to The Office-style inflatable sumo wrestling, all to-do items on the final Bucket List, which was unearthed by Elle in an old Mario lunchbox. The flash mob and cosplay racing scenes are pretty fun and memorable, but the rest is reduced to a montage as the movie is essentially acknowledging that these high schoolers are peaking before their lives have even begun. With all the fun out of the way, the characters start behaving like adults in the film’s final stretch the pressure’s on for everyone involved to tie things up well, and even if all that’s come before feels generic keep in mind that a lot of today’s teens haven’t necessarily seen the bajillion other TV series and movies that are so obviously recycled in this trilogy, what really matters here is how the Kissing Booth movies will end, since that’s what real fans and ironic “fans” like me alike will remember. Here, Orson Welles’ adage comes in handy “If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.” The Kissing Booth 3 could have gone out on a conventional romantic note — say, ending on a kiss — as if to suggest that Elle and Noah will grow old and gray together. Instead, the film leaves things frustratingly uncertain, inventing a whole new list of college ambitions for Elle that hadn’t even been hinted at until now. And then? It skips forward six years to a high school reunion, revealing a career-chasing Elle who is so transformed that I wish they made a film had been about those intervening years, in which she goes to college and develops a personality. But maybe it’s enough to know that she eventually managed to find one. The final installment in this dreaded trilogy has about as much depth as a river in a heat wave, but isn’t really as hateable as the other two. I had points where I almost genuinely enjoyed it despite its length and insufferable main character. I even developed, dare I say it, empathy for some of the characters, even Elle, at some of the more distressing points. It’s not all bad, too – aside from the scenes I had genuine laughs at, the message of trusting yourself and doing what you love is something that resonates more with me, especially as Elle grew a spine. Maybe, just maybe, I treated these films too harshly, and they will go on to become cult films in the future. STARS Credit Getty Images for Netflix The Kissing Booth is the teen romance that Netflix CCO Ted Sarandos claims is "one of the most watched movies in the world right nowopens in a new tab." And that's a big problem. Don't get me wrong. I can appreciate a glittery high school fantasy as much as the next person—seriously, I've seen all of Riverdale. But The Kissing Booth isn't just the latest movie setting unrealistic expectations for teenagers. Instead, it is a two hour tribute to Netflix's trend of valuing controversial and too often willfully ignorant content over quality young adult narratives. The Kissing Booth is a bad movie, as its shallow characters, erratic pacing, laughable dialogue, and 17% Rotten Tomatoesopens in a new tab score can confirm. And yet, scads of young viewers are obsessing over its story, with some even demanding it be turned into a television series. Like 13 Reasons Why, The Kissing Booth dazzles fans by peppering its plot with hot button topics and then blowing right past them. In an hour and forty-five minutes, audience members are jerked through depictions of slut shaming, manipulative relationship tactics, fetishization of minors, allegations of domestic violence, sexual harassment and assault, dangerous underage drinking habits, and a really big helping of toxic masculinity. Some fans defend the movie by nodding to the likability of the romcom's star couple. But if you watch with an even remotely discerning eye, you'll quickly notice these lovebirds' abusive relationship represents insidious and unacceptable stereotypes. First, there's Elle Evans Joey King who is given plenty of quirky dialogue and whose tomboyish ways are detailed in the film's excruciatingly long setup. But that's about it in terms of breaking sexist cliches. From running around the men's locker room half-naked and covered in paint to sliding slow motion down a slip-n-slide, Elle spends nearly the entire film in booty shorts, crop tops, bathing suits, and her underwear. The trendy clothes that indicate she is and I quote "asking for it" lead to her hunky suitor protecting her from groping and endless ogling for the entire storyline. My advice to the filmmakers For the sake of your young audience, grow up. That knight in shining armor is Noah Flynn Jacob Elordi, who jumps at the chance to violently attack anyone who threatens his love interest. And when Elle later asks him about his anger issues, he responds that he's "just wired" that way—bringing the "boys will be boys" defense to the aid of this already problematic character. As Noah gets increasingly possessive, he often yells at Elle for not doing as he says, at one point claiming she has "a lot to learn." When Elle sticks up for herself, Noah ever so charmingly calls her "bossy." Did Tina Fey's best-selling book really teach him nothing?This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the mountain of mistakes The Kissing Booth makes. Unfortunately, the negative realities of this romcom don't seem to be resonating with its fervent fan base. My advice to the filmmakers on their next teen project? For the sake of your young audience, grow up. Alison Foreman is one heck of a gal. She's also a writer in Los Angeles, who used to cover movies, TV, video games, and the internet for Mashable. alfaforeman This newsletter may contain advertising, deals, or affiliate links. Subscribing to a newsletter indicates your consent to our Terms of Useopens in a new tab and Privacy Policyopens in a new tab. You may unsubscribe from the newsletters at any time.