Netflix’s original movie, The Kissing Booth, is a movie the Internet loves to hate on, but does it deserve all the hate it gets?
From a critical standpoint, it’s not the best movie made. There’s tomuch voiceover. The acting at times leaves a lot to be desired. Especially at the beginning. Let me put this way: It’s a higher quality movie compared with the Christian High School Musical rip off, Sunday School Musical, but I’ve watched better Disney Channel Original Movies.
The movie gets better as it goes along, and is actually enjoyable by the end of it. I can understand the criticism. It may be a bad movie, but it’s not so bad that it can’t be liked.
From a personal standpoint, I liked it. I’m a sucker for The I’m-in-love-with-my-best friend’s-brother concept.
The story is simple: Elle (Joey King) has had a crush on her best friend Lee’s (Joel Courtney) brother Noah (Jacob Elrodi) since she was little. But because of a lengthy list of rules Elle and Lee created at six years old, rule #9 on the list says romances with family members are off limits.
At first Noah plays the role of Elle’s protective older brother, but their relationship quickly accelerates into something more when they share a mind-blowing first kiss at the Kissing Booth during the school’s fundraiser. They hide their relationship from Lee, but naturally he catches them, and all hell breaks loose.
The Kissing Booth lives up to its TV-14 rating. There’s swearing including three variations of the F-word. Teen partying and drinking, Elle strips down to her underwear almost three times, one of those being while she’s intoxicated. There are several passionate make out scenes, and one fade-to-black sex scene. (Meaning nothing explicit is shown.) This movie is definitely NOT for children, but should be fine for older teens.
I feel like 2.5 is a fair critical rating, and 3 is a fair personal rating. If I let my hormones lead my review, I would rate it higher just based how hot Jacob Elrodi is, but that wouldn’t be professional.
Stay tuned for my review on the sequel next week!
I’ve never read To All the Boys I Loved Before so I can’t compare the book to the movie, so I thought the movie was cute! It starts off slow and is hard to get into at first, but similar to The Kissing Booth, it got more interesting as the story progressed. The only major problem I had with this movie is all the voiceover. If I wanted to know every bit of exposition and thought that Lara-Jean had, I would’ve read the book!
Lara-Jean (Lana Condor) has written a letter to every boy she’s ever had an “intense” crush on including her older sister’s boyfriend Josh (Israel Broussard) and her middle school crush, Peter Kavinsky (Netflix’s Golden Boy, Noah Centino). Lara-Jean’s younger sister thinks she’s being helpful and secretly sends the letters to their respective recipients in the hopes of getting L.J. a boyfriend.
The movie focuses on a kinda- sorta love triangle between Josh, L.J. and Peter. Both boys are quick to tell her they don’t share her feelings. Lara-Jean’s still hung up on Josh and feels nothing towards Peter, but that doesn’t stop her and Peter from fake dating to make Josh and Peter’s Ex, Gen, jealous. Over time, they real romantic feelings that get in the way.
I know this is a terrible comparison, but it’s one I couldn’t help making: To All the Boys I Loved Before is like a teenage friendly version of 50 Shades of Grey. The only element similar between the two movies is that the main couple agrees to a contract for how their relationship will work. Unlike 50 Shades, no sex is involved. In fact there’s a no kissing rule from L.J. and Peter requires her to attend every party, sports game, and the school’s annual ski trip.
Quality-wise, this movie was better than Kissing Booth, but it still had a few issues including some language and a girl at one of the parties asks Lara-Jean how far she and Peter have gone physically. There’s not much here to be concerned about so this movie should be fine for younger teens as well as older.
Sierra Burgess is a Loser was long and boring. It wasn’t a bad movie at all. I wanted to like it, but it wasn’t for me. The plot was cute:
Cheerleader Veronica (Kristine Froseth) gives Jamey (Noah Centineo) unpopular girl, Sierra Burgess’ (Shannon Purser) phone number instead of hers as a mean prank. Jamey texts Sierra, thinking it’s Veronica, and the two start texting and calling on a regular basis.
Veronica and Sierra become partners in crime when Veronica agrees to be the face to the relationship in exchange Sierra helps Veronica bring her grades up. The two become unlikely friends as a result.
The movie had it’s moments. The scene where Veronica forces Sierra to take her place so she and Jamey could have their first kiss was cute. The ending was the best part, but it wasn’t worth the boring beginning and middle to get there. Seeing the credits finally roll was the most exciting part of the movie! I had more fun distracting myself from the long run time by pinning pictures of Chris Pine to my Pinterest board.
There was occasional language and a teen party scene with underage drinking. Other than that, there weren’t any major issues besides near death by boredom.
2¢ Movie Reviews 