THE KISSING BOOTH 3

The KISSING BOOTH saga on Netflix continues in Los Angeles as Elle, Noah and Lee return in the third and final installment. It’s the summer before college, and Elle, Lee and Noah decide to have some final adventures, drama and shenanigans. Elle was accepted into both Harvard and Berkeley at the end of the second movie. At the beginning of the third movie, she struggles to decide whether to attend Berkeley with her best friend, Lee, or attend Harvard with her boyfriend, Noah. Elle chooses to attend Harvard with Noah, but her decision upsets Lee.

In addition to Elle’s decision between her boyfriend and best friend, the Flynn family decides to sell their beach house, symbolically marking that the childhood Elle and Lee shared has truly ended. Elle tries to make up for abandoning Lee by digging out an old bucket list of things to do that she and Lee made when they were children to create the most memorable summer ever. The two then decide to have one last hurrah when they go cliff jumping, prank Noah and do an awesome live action re-creation of Mario Kart.

While this is all happening, Elle’s former love interest, Marco, returns in Elle’s life to try and woo Elle and persuade her to leave Noah. This causes a huge rift in Elle’s relationship with Noah. On top of all that, Elle’s widowed father starts dating a woman named Linda, and Elle feels her dad is replacing her mom.

With the stress of her dying relationship with Noah, her struggling friendship with Lee, her dad dating, and college decisions, working during the summer becomes overwhelming for Elle. She then has a talk with Mrs. Flynn, her surrogate mother as well as Lee and Noah’s mother. Elle discovers that every decision she’s ever made about her future was for the sake of not hurting the people closest to her. For her to be happy, she needs to put her needs and wants first for once and get the support of her loved ones that way. What will Elle decide?

THE KISSING BOOTH 3 once again combines wacky teenage comedy and some serious coming of age drama. However, the plotlines for all the characters continue to be way too simple and cliché. Also, the movie has an entertaining, almost nostalgic quality about it, but it drags on much longer than it needs to do. Furthermore, there are too many montages to really keep track of what’s happening.

The movie has some other major concerns. For example, there’s lots of mostly light foul language. Also, there are two implied fornication scenes between teenagers. In addition, many of the characters spend most of the movie half naked, with the guys without their shirts and the girls wearing skimpy bikinis. THE KISSING BOOTH 3 has a strong Romantic worldview. It stresses doing what feels emotionally right for everyone instead of doing what is truly good in the eyes of God. KISSING BOOTH 3 is very funny and sometimes endearing, but it’s also too plain and uninteresting.