The Kissing Booth Start & Fun Facts

The Kissing Booth is a movie and book franchise that was written by at the time 15-year-old Beth Reekles. She was the youngest Wattpad writer to sign a book deal and succeeded in being turned into not only a book series but a three-part movie franchise. What I want to understand is why Netflix decided to make not only one but three of these would be a good idea. 

 

The First Movie

To start, I’m going to quickly summarize the first movie. We start with two best friends Lee Flynn and Elle Evans, two of the main characters of the movie. There's a montage of them growing up and you see poor Elle who while she says she isn't that fortunate, is chilling in a mansion with a gigantic pool so sure Elle you're poor. Moving on Elle wears a revealing skirt and proceeds to get assaulted and the movie addresses this by making a joke out of it and having the guy who touched her come out in a skirt to get her number. If the scene wasn't attempting to be incredibly ignorant then I have no idea what they tried to achieve. Moving on in that same assault scene we get introduced to Noah Flynn, Lee Flynn’s ‘attractive’ older brother. (I’d like to add that Jacob Elordi, the actor who played Noah Flynn, the haircut was not doing him any favors in this movie.) Fast forward to a meeting Elle and Lee are in over what they're going to add to the school festival, Elle suggests a kissing booth(haha get it) in which they will have the super popular and very attractive Noah Flynn. He rejects so she gets over it and continues with the kissing booth plan and he shows up and kisses her. She tells Lee and he says that he doesn't mind as long as they don’t take it further than that since it breaks these (dumb) rules they made when they were much younger. Fast forward some more and they are sneaking around and get caught by Lee who makes a big deal, yells at Elle, and accuses Noah of physically abusing Elle. I sense a pattern of ignorance here but I know it’s not the end of it. Come Noah’s graduation and Elle snaps at Lee and tells him she can’t be told who to love so she makes him tell her where Noah is going and she runs to catch up to him but on the drive there the guy she thought was Lee ended up being Noah so they made up and spent the summer together. The movie’s over but the franchise isn’t. 

 

The Second Movie

Moving on there is the 2-hour and 11-minute long movie “The Kissing Booth 2”. Like the first one the movie starts with a montage of what occurred over the summer. Due to the success of the first kissing booth, the year prior, the committee for the school carnival is willing to give them another kissing booth this year. A little more into the movie and Noah appears(Jacob finally got a haircut) on a call from Harvard where he is attending. And then more rules come into action since Elle is now considering Harvard instead of going to Berkeley with Lee. Fast forward a bit and this new guy Marco appears(If you have read my “Tall Girl 2” article you will see I mentioned this movie doing the same thing that they did there which was add a colored character and make him the reject for a white boy. Also fun fact the actor did not know what it was he was auditioning for until getting the role. He was given a script with fake names for the characters.) and he hears Elle on the loudspeakers saying how attractive she finds him. (She has a boyfriend so I don’t understand why she would be randomly saying this.) Fast forward even more past some filler and Lee and Elle are hanging out when Lee forgets that he had a scheduled date with his girlfriend(I completely forgot to mention her in the first movie summary due to how boring and one dimensional she is.). She then proceeds to get mad at Lee and tells him that he has to get his priorities straight and choose between her or Elle. Lee decides to fake an injury to get out of a tournament with Elle and she finds out soon yet forgives him. (Another fun fact, the actor and actress who played Lee and Elle practiced their dancing skills for 3 hours daily for these few scenes. And they still looked bad.) But while this is all going down Noah has this beautiful friend Chloe who Elle is so envious of.  Fast forward to a random Halloween party and Lee forgets to tell his girlfriend about a costume change so they go as ghostbusters and she's a marshmallow with a plate of more marshmallows on her head. His girlfriend snaps at Elle like a two-year-old saying that she is a leech who doesn’t respect her relationship because of “her stupid dance dance revolution tournament”(her words, not mine. This movie is a mess). Lee proceeds to ignore Elle and ends up getting mad when he finds some Harvard application papers. Going back to the tournament Lee ditched Elle and she ends up training with Marco for it they connect and go to the competition and they kiss. Even though Elle is in a committed relationship she initiates a kiss with a guy and suddenly feels bad when she sees Noah in the crowd who came to cheer for her from Boston. Fast forward to Thanksgiving and the Flynn brothers are both subtly insulting Elle until she snaps(once more) and starts breaking down. Fast forward to the kissing booth where Elle rejects Marco (even though she led him on but whatever) and she and Noah make up and Elle writes the worst essay ever and for some odd reason gets into both Harvard and Berkeley yet she lies to both leading to the third movie. (I just want to mention how much I hate Lee’s girlfriend. She lacks understanding and not only is she rude to Elle throughout the movie but so controlling towards Lee. Overall she lacks the criteria to be able to have a healthy relationship. ) 

 

The Final Movie

After suffering through two terrible movies I am finally getting through the last 1 hour and 52-minute end to this trilogy. “The Kissing Booth 3” starts with yet another montage but this isn’t the only one in the movie. After a montage of around the first week of summer vacation, we cut to Elle, Noah, Lee, and his girlfriend in some random mansion with a giant pool. Elle is very conflicted about what college she’s going to attend. Suppose she will move in with Noah or go with Lee. Fast forward some bit to Lee and Noah’s parents selling some never before mentioned beach house and they all become upset by it. (I want to point out how Elle told them she voted for them not to sell it when it isn’t even her parents. How entitled and unlikeable is this character?) Noah, Lee, and Elle appear in this beach house and Lee and Elle find some random list of things to do before they go off to college. Fast forward a couple of minutes and Elle rejects Berkeley and decides she will go to Harvard with Noah. After Lee gets upset(like the man-child he is) Elle suggests they make the most out of their time left together and decide to do everything on the list they found. After a second montage of them doing the activities, we cut to Elle meeting Marco at her job and Chloe calling Noah. Elle understands Chloe is coming, but Noah is jealous of Marco helping her (while some may say this is stupid and he shouldn’t have these feelings, I'd like to point out that nothing happened between Chloe and Noah while Elle kissed Marco on a nationwide competition moving on). Noah says he’s too cool for Elle and Lee’s Mario Kart in real life idea so he tells them to find someone else, so they do. And that someone is Marco(which is so stupid because Elle knows Noah doesn't trust him yet she’s overstepping his boundaries by remaining friends with her) he of course agrees since he is still in love with Elle. Fast-forwarding to the day of the race and Noah seeing that Marco is there decided that he will compete as well because he doesn’t want to be outshined by him. He then gets into an argument with Elle and goes to hang out with Chloe out of spite. Elle in response to this throws a flash mob with Lee and Marco(first of all what? Second of all, why does she keep going out with Marco?) Marco goes to meet Elle in her workplace to help her feel better but sees Noah there with her slow dancing. (Like why are you surprised if she is a taken girl?) Fast forward to a beach volleyball scene in which Noah ‘accidentally’ spikes a ball in Marco’s face. Marco punches Noah and Noah walks away pissed at Elle for welcoming Marco back into their lives and Elle plays the victim. (I don’t understand why she is so upset and confused when she is the one who messed up. She led Marco on so of course he fought for her.) Lee and Elle fight afterward due to her lying to him about being wait-listed into Berkely when she had been accepted in reality. Fast forward to Noah and Lee’s mother telling Elle that she has never thought about what she wanted to do(because she doesn’t have a personality) so Elle decides she is into video game design, (even though she was shown playing games like 4 times in all the trilogy) so she goes to neither college and says goodbye to Lee and Noah. Fast forward six years and Elle is a video game designer and Noah is nothing mentioned and they ride out in a motorcycle. 

 

Ending Conclusion

Moving on I wrote quite a lot and if you made it to the end thank you very much for reading my review on these terrible movies. This franchise was milked for all it was worth and more. After consulting with my friends about Noah and Elle’s relationship they both had a bone to pick. One friend, Grace, mentioned, “They had a very toxic relationship and I think Marco would have been a better choice than Noah.” My other friend, Parveen, said, “The best friend's older brother movie trope is boring and overused.” Overall these movies are terrible and you should appreciate the amount of time I spent staring at Jacob Elordi’s terrible hair.