The Kissing Booth 3

I watched The Kissing Booth 3 on a Tuesday afternoon while my neighbor was relentlessly using a leaf blower right outside my window. Honestly? The roar of the machinery provided a surprisingly fitting industrial soundtrack to a movie that feels like it was assembled in a high-tech Netflix laboratory by robots trying to understand the concept of "vibes."

By the time the third installment of this behemoth franchise dropped in 2021, the world had changed. We were deep into the streaming-first era, a time when a movie doesn't need a theatrical run to become a global phenomenon—it just needs an algorithm that knows exactly how much shirtless Jacob Elordi we can handle before our brains melt. This finale is the ultimate "comfort junk food" of the pandemic era: bright, loud, unnecessarily long, and completely aware that you’re probably scrolling through TikTok while watching it.

The Algorithm’s Final Boss

The plot picks up right where the second one left us hanging: Elle (Joey King) is facing a choice between Harvard (to be with her boyfriend Noah) or Berkeley (to honor a lifelong pact with her best friend Lee). It’s the kind of high-stakes teen drama that only exists in movies where everyone lives in a multi-million dollar beach house and never seems to worry about tuition.

The central conflict is, quite frankly, exhausting. Elle spends the entire 112-minute runtime trying to please two incredibly needy men. On one side, you have Noah (Jacob Elordi), who is essentially a brooding eyebrow with a motorcycle. On the other, there’s Lee (Joel Courtney), whose "Best Friend Rules" are bordering on a mild form of emotional hostage-taking. This movie is essentially a 112-minute Pinterest board for people who enjoy being stressed out by water parks.

Director Vince Marcello (who also brought us the Teen Beach Movie franchise) doubles down on the "summer fun" aesthetic here. We get go-karting, flash mobs, and a "Beach Bucket List" that feels less like a fun vacation and more like a grueling CrossFit itinerary. It’s peak contemporary cinema—designed for high-saturation screens and social media shareability.

The Joey King Carry Job

If there is a reason to watch this, it’s Joey King. I’ve followed her career since she was a kid in Ramona and Beezus, and she is a legitimate force of nature. She has this incredible, Lucille Ball-esque commitment to physical comedy. Whether she’s falling off a chair or sobbing over a breakup, she gives 110%, even when the script is giving her about 15%.

She’s significantly better than the material requires. Between this franchise and her Emmy-nominated turn in The Act, she has proven she can do just about anything. In The Kissing Booth 3, she’s tasked with making Elle’s indecisiveness sympathetic, which is a Herculean feat given that Elle Evans has the decision-making skills of a confused golden retriever.

Then there’s Jacob Elordi. Watching him in this film is a fascinating exercise in "spot the actor who has already checked out." By 2021, Elordi was already a breakout star in Euphoria, and you can practically see him counting down the minutes until he can go back to being a prestige-TV villain. His chemistry with King—which was the spark that ignited the first film—feels a bit more strained here, perhaps because the two had dated and broken up in real life long before the cameras rolled on this secret back-to-back production.

A Relic of the "Content" Age

One of the most interesting "Cool Details" about this film is that it was filmed in total secrecy alongside the second movie in South Africa. Netflix knew they had a hit, and they treated it like a Marvel production. This "content churn" is a hallmark of our current moment; the film doesn't just tell a story, it fulfills a quarterly subscriber goal.

There’s a strange sense of mourning in this movie, not just for the characters' childhoods, but for the franchise itself. Even the inclusion of Molly Ringwald as the Flynn mother feels like a passing of the torch. Ringwald, the queen of the 80s John Hughes era (The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink), serves as a bridge between the classic teen movies of the past and this new, glossy, streaming-optimized version of adolescence.

The comedy often misses the mark for me because it feels so choreographed. The "Mario Kart" sequence, while visually inventive, is the kind of "How do you do, fellow kids?" moment that makes you realize the writers might be a few decades removed from actual teenagers. It lacks the messy, spontaneous heart of something like Booksmart or Lady Bird, opting instead for a polished, "Disney Channel for older kids" energy.

Ultimately, The Kissing Booth 3 is a service to its fans. It provides closure, a few tears, and enough "Beach Boy" aesthetic to last a lifetime. It’s a product of its time—a movie designed to be consumed in a single sitting, discussed on Twitter for 48 hours, and then tucked away into the "Because You Watched..." recommendations forever. While it won't be remembered as a cinematic masterpiece, it’s a fascinating time capsule of how we watched movies in the early 2020s: from the comfort of our couches, looking for a world where the sun always shines and the biggest problem is which Ivy League school to attend.