Despite its immense popularity, Netflix’s Kissing Booth trilogy has received overall negative reviews from critics. Based on the novels of the same name by Beth Reekles, the first movie released on Netflix in in 2018 and the final movie, The Kissing Booth 3, was released in August of 2021. The teen romance franchise stars Joey King, Jacob Elordi, Joel Cameron, Meganne Young, and Taylor Zakhar Perez.
The Kissing Booth trilogy cast is centered on quirky teenager Elle Evans, along with her life-long best friend Lee Flynn and his brother, Noah Flynn, with whom she develops a romance. The first film chronicles the start of Elle’s relationship with Noah, which she attempts to keep secret from Lee because it breaks one of their friendship rules. When Lee finds out that Elle is dating his brother, the three fall out but manage to patch things up before Noah heads off to college. In The Kissing Booth 2, Elle is jealous of Noah’s attractive friend at Harvard and cheats on him with hunky a new kid named Marco during a dance competition. Meanwhile, Lee ignores his own girlfriend, Rachel. The characters once again work out their issues, albeit rather vaguely. The Kissing Booth 3 sees Elle have another falling out with both Lee and Noah once again as she struggles with her college decision. After deciding to follow neither best friend nor boyfriend and instead pursue her own path, she is ultimately reunited with both after a time jump.
The repetitive nature of the respective plots of all three films was just one of the reasons critics panned the Kissing Booth series. Other complaints include pointing out the inherent misogyny in the stories, plot holes, bloated narratives, and rampant clichés. Here is a sample of what critics have said about each entry in The Kissing Booth series.
The Kissing Booth
“'The Kissing Booth' is preoccupied with sexist rhetoric and a willingness to apologize for Noah’s alarming behavior."
"Having seen it, I can confirm that it’s not a good film. In fact, its themes are at times unsettling. Lee Flynn (Joel Courtney) spends the movie trying to emotionally manipulate Elle (King) into not dating his older brother, while the older brother, Noah (Elordi), threatens to beat up anyone else who tries to date Elle. It’s literally a movie about two men trying to control a woman."
The Kissing Booth 2
"Aside from this movie being an embarrassment, completely lacking in intellect, and formulaic, it centres on these terrible, terrible people. It's also completely predicated on everyone lying to one another, which is the stupidest and laziest plot device of all."
The Kissing Booth 3
"Many of the storylines feel like an overreaching attempt to give audiences more of these characters, but instead of giving them actual depth, the movie turns to petty love-triangle dialogue."
"The Kissing Booth 3 has too much going on for any of its story beats to land particularly well, whether it's Elle and Lee's relationship or Elle and Noah's, there are too many other distractions to truly develop either dynamic much without some clunky dialogue explaining exactly what's happening. Part of that is due to the sheer number of storylines crammed into the film's less than two-hour runtime."
As many reviews point out, Elle has little agency as a protagonist throughout the Kissing Booth series in regard to Lee and Noah. Her feelings and decisions are largely determined by the two prominent men in her life, Noah and Lee, both of whom are toxic in their own ways. Lee retains his entitled and selfish attitude throughout the trilogy, hurting both Elle and Rachel and never properly owning up to it. Noah is controlling, and even violent in the first film, while Elle constantly puts up with and justifies his behavior. Complaints regarding the first Kissing Booth movie also focus on its overuse of clichés. The “OMG girls,” Elle’s drunken table dancing, and the secret relationship trope all feel lifted from popular 2000s era rom-coms.
Another main point in many negative reviews of the Kissing Booth franchise is the lack of personal growth for its characters. Interpersonal conflicts tend to repeat themselves across the films, such as Noah’s jealousy over Elle’s relationship with Marco and Lee’s too-strict adherence to his and Elle’s outdated “friendship rules.” Many of the central conflicts in the Kissing Booth series involve a lack of communication, yet they're also often resolved confusingly quickly and without any clear understanding between the characters, reinforcing character stagnation rather than development. It's frustrating as it makes the characters less likable and the narrative less realistic.
The third Kissing Booth movie has garnered the harshest criticism, with a Rotten Tomatoes score of only 12 percent. Alongside the flawed character arcs and clichéd elements of the first two films, The Kissing Booth 3 has a disappointing ending and a cluttered story, with a confusing mix of elements that can’t seem to beside which to prioritize. For a film with so much going on, there are few major developments. The characters continuously circle back to previous unresolved conflicts while random interspersed events, like the flash mob and other bucket list items, serve only to distract from the plot (or lack thereof). Many viewers felt let down by The Kissing Booth 3, and some hope for a fourth installment to correct its wrongs, but so far the Kissing Booth movies have been trending downhill.