The Kissing Booth 3

Year 17, Day 65 - 3/6/25 - Movie #4,965

BEFORE: Well, as we say around here at the Movie Year, every chain has to end sometime. But the poster for this film points out that the end of one thing is the beginning of something else, ideally.  There are still a few films about romance and relationships coming up, but nothing on the horizon looks very rom-commy.  I'm going to transition off this topic back to action films and such, and right now the second half of March is pretty much open, I'm down for whatever gets me to Easter, but first I'll have to figure out where I want to be on April 20 and what films are going to get me there. I probably won't have time until Saturday to figure that out, I just know I've got 9 or 10 Liam Neeson films lined up, and one of them hopefully leads me to another something else, so that one will go last in that sequence. And I'll be on vacation for 6 days in late March, so the blog will go dark, and I'll have to factor that into the programming. 

Joel Courtney carries over again from "The Kissing Booth 2" - and so do 29 other actors. 

THE PLOT: It's the summer before Elle Evans is set to head off to college, and she has a big decision to make. 

AFTER: We left off at the end of "The Kissing Booth 2" with Elle getting acceptance letters from both UC Berkeley AND Harvard, and don't you just HATE when that happens. She always promised Lee they'd go to Berkeley together, because that's where their moms met and became besties, but she also promised Noah that she'd go to school in Boston so they can get an apartment together near campus.  What a dilemma, she's got to break the bad news to one of the two brothers, and her decision is... to NOT make a decision until the very last minute, which turns out to be the worst possible thing she can do.  The biggest problem with this film series is that nobody, especially Elle, seems to be learning from their mistakes, they just continue on because they don't want to have a potentially awkward conversation about something, but that just kicks the problem down the road a bit, and then later somebody's going to be really mad that they weren't part of the conversation about something. 

Elle's the worst offender at this, because she doesn't want to hurt anyone, even when she's promised different things to different people and those things are not going to work together at all. It might be the easiest solution for the moment to put her needs last and try to satisfy everyone else, but that's really not a viable long-term solution FOR HER, and one day hopefully she realizes this, only she never does.  Yes, of course, you can be in an exclusive lasting relationship with someone and still also have friends on the side, as long as everybody is open and honest about everything and everybody likes each other and gets along, and nobody has a sudden attack of jealousy over how much time is devoted to friends. But as we saw in the last film, this combination of trying to balance work, play, family, friends, and your hot-headed jealous long-term partner is pretty much a recipe for disaster.  But no, go ahead, try to lie your way out of these scheduling conflicts or the fact that you want to juggle three boyfriends while limiting your own partner's options.  Let me know how that goes. 

Elle should be saving money to pay for college (if she ever manages to decide on one) BUT you can't take extra shifts at the restaurant AND also finish that "Best Summer Ever" bucket list you wrote years ago, because doing all of those things - the water-park, the go-kart races, sky-diving - costs MONEY.  And they take up time, you'd have to give up sleeping if you're bouncing back and forth between your hometown and the beach house.  Logistically, this is all just plain impossible.  Look, if you own a beach house by its very nature that's not going to be IN your hometown, it's going to be some distance away, because otherwise if you lived close to the beach, well, then you wouldn't need the beach house.

And let's talk about that beach house - I think it's bigger than the family's MAIN house, and that's saying something. It looks like it sleeps 27 people comfortably, which is handy when you want to throw that big summer rager beach party every couple of days.  But come on, this is a fantasy world, right? I mean, nobody could maintain this schedule, with the parties and all the summer activities and STILL show up for work AND handle extra shifts.  Even if this were possible, it doesn't exactly create a great environment for Elle and Lee, who are trying to keep their relationships afloat, but if you're always short on sleep, that's going to affect your mood, and that's ultimately going to affect your relationship, which is already on thin ice for the reasons above. 

It all comes to a head when Elle and Lee want to dress up like character from Super Mario Bros. and re-enact a Mario Kart race on the go-kart track, which is at the water-park managed by Marco, who was Elle's "Dance Dance Mania" partner in the last film.  He's sort-of boyfriend #3, or he was for a time, and Noah's not going to be happy that he's back in Elle's life. Marco agrees to dress up like Wario and let them throw silly string and whipped-cream bombs at each other (totally against the park rules, I'll wager...) but come on, is it WORTH IT in the end if it costs Elle her relationship with Noah? Completing your fantasy summer bucket list is bad for you, it turns out. Plus, there goes all that money she saved for college expenses, they wasted it on costumes and props.

Lee also tries to sabotage the sale of the beach house, which is NOT COOL, and surprisingly there are no repercussions for this, but there really should be. Dude, your parents own the beach house, not you, and they can do whatever they want with it.  Did he even stop for a second to think that they might need the money to pay for HIS college tuition?  No, of course he didn't, because he's also a petty person who thinks only about his own pleasure all the time, like a grown-up child.  God forbid that a Millennial kid be inconvenienced in any way, like why didn't HE get a summer job?  He swept up at the restaurant where Elle works, but he's not getting paid for that - and even UC Berkeley is expensive. Hope he enjoys paying off student loans for the rest of his life. Maybe lay off the cosplay a bit, kid, it's a very expensive hobby.

Elle deals with all the pent-up resentment from putting everyone ELSE'S needs first by taking it out on her father's girlfriend, who really has done nothing wrong, she hasn't been trying to replace Elle's mom or anything, and did not deserve for Elle (another spoiled millennial) from blowing up at her. Sure, Elle apologizes later, but it never should have happened in the first place. Linda just wants to tell Elle some cool stories about her mom, but Elle's always too busy to hear them, which is not a shock to anyone.  You get what you give, Elle, and taking things out on your dad's new girlfriend is just creating bad karma, you'll see. 

Eventually Elle learns to dial in on herself and what SHE maybe wants to do with her life, and she decides to learn how to make video-games. Right, but very few women end up working in this space, maybe she'll be an exception, and maybe that will be good for video-games in general, but who can say?  Anyway, she ends up disappointing both Noah AND Lee, so yeah, my prediction was wrong - I'm still Team Lee, though, Noah's a giant douche. Like, sure, you go girl, get out there and kill it, do NOT backslide and take Noah's ass back. You're better than that.

Noah and Lee's mom ultimately decides to not sell the beach house, which doesn't make much sense considering she now has TWO sons in college, one at Harvard.  It also doesn't make sense because some development companies wants to build condos there, so the LAND is probably more valuable than the house, she's passing on millions and will probably have to change her tune by the time that the third year of Noah's tuition comes due.  

It feels like somebody almost forgot to write a kissing booth into the script, which is a bit like making a "Star Wars" movie and almost forgetting to put in a war and some stars. You know, like maybe keep the focus on what got you there, right?  So they threw in a kissing booth right near the end, and it affects the plot not at all, it's just window dressing at this point, something that reminds everyone how this whole crazy mess gets started so they can be nostalgic and happy and sad all at the same time. 

OK, I've spent entirely too much time on the romantic life of one fictional teen, Elle Evans. I'm excited to be moving on to something else, really, anything at all right now will do just fine. 

Directed by Vince Marcello (director of "The Kissing Booth 2")

Also starring Joey King, Jacob Elordi, Molly Ringwald, Taylor Zakhar Perez, Maisie Richardson-Sellers, Meganne Young, Stephen Jennings, Carson White, Morne Visser, Bianca Bosch, Camilla Wolfson, Zandile Madiiwa, Judd Krok, Sanda Shandu, Hilton Pelser, Frances Sholto-Douglas, Evan Hengst, Joshua Eady, Trent Rowe, Michelle Allen, Nathan Lynn, Byron Langley, Chloe Williams, Toni Jean Erasmus, Bianca Amato, Nadia Kretschmer, Matthew Dylan Roberts, Maria Pretorius, Lya du Toit (all carrying over from "The Kissing Booth 2")

Megan du Plessis, Lincoln Pearson, Michael Miccoli, Chase Dallas, Jesse Rowan-Goldberg, Juliet Blacher (all last seen in "The Kissing Booth"), Cameron Scott, Daneel Van Der Walt, Daniel Raj, Peter Butler, Colin Moss (last seen in "Then Came You"), Michael Kirch (last seen in "Bloodshot"), Vanessa-Lee Hamlett, James van Helsdingen, Caleb Payne, Kingsley Pearson 

RATING: 4 out of 10 bloopers during the end credits (please, send help)