The Kissing Booth 2

IW: The Social Network, Casablanca, and Lady Bird. What do all of these movies (amazing in their own right) have in common? They are all under two hours- these FILMS (yes, films not movies) get their point across (and quite well) in under two hours. So, somebody tell me why The Kissing Booth 2, emotional rollercoaster according to Becky Hackett and Becky Hackett alone, has a run time of 2 hours and 11 minutes. This sequel to a critically reviewed movie based on a Wattpad book manages to say absolutely nothing in a RIDICULOUS amount of time. I love cringe movies, The Kissing Booth is one of my favorites but this crosses a goddamn LINE because it’s cringe isn’t even memorable. I could not tell you what a single character in that movie’s name is (except sexy sexy Marco) and I watched it two days before I wrote this review. 

It honestly makes SPF-18, a movie so terrible I once wrote a 4 page paper on it (I got an A but that’s not important), look like the Palme d’Or winner at Cannes. And I know that sounds pretentious and like I am shitting on this movie just to make myself seem smart, but I swear that’s not the case. I love terrible movies but again, there is a line and The Kissing Booth 2 crossed it. I would LOVE to go into detail about why I hate this movie but that would require me to recall details of this movie and I frankly don’t feel like giving myself a migraine. The things I do remember are Joey King’s horrendous wig, the fact I am supposed to believe this girl who spends all of her time playing an arcade game got into Berkeley and Harvard(?), and the gay subplot that I would honestly watch a feature-length film about (under 2 hours please). But, at the end of the day, I am a sucker for a bad movie and I am counting down the days until I get to watch The Kissing Booth 3 (hopefully with Gabbie). Because what else am I supposed to do?

GV: I watched this movie approximately four hours after having my wisdom teeth removed so take this opinion as you wish. I gave this movie two and a half stars. Which is higher than my rating of Hot Summer Nights, Bridget Jones Diary, and The Talented Mr. Ripley. Do I stand by this? No. However, I did like this more than the first Kissing Booth movie. I think. Again, everything really is a blur. But I found this movie much less cringy and was very invested into how that earring got under Noah's bed!  Like Joey King said, “these movies are critic-proof”. To me, this means the movies are so unmemorable that there's literally nothing to critique. Maybe it was the drugs in my system, but I can't recount a single scene from this movie. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing Marcos face on screen though! He's absolutely beautiful and has many more redeeming qualities compared to Noah Flynn. I’m still utterly confused at the fact that Elle got into both Harvard and Berkley and lied about being waitlisted for both. I have so many questions about that and alas they will be answered in this godforsaken third movie that has already been filmed!