JoelCourtney – Credits Rolling

In Netflix’s latest rom-com venture, Mack (Gina Rodriguez) is a sportswriter who has been making hook up plays with her best friend Adam (Damon Wayans Jr.) and their crew (Augustus Prew, Joel Courtney and Liza Koshy) for years. When she unexpectedly falls for hotshot reporter Nick (Tom Ellis), her plans are thwarted, and she is forced to rethink everything she thought she knew about the games she crafted.

Players looked like a cute film from its trailer. The cast is great with the likes of Rodriguez, who is not only stunning but full of charisma, Wayans Jr. who has great comedic chops and the delectable Ellis fresh off his run from the streaming platform’s Lucifer. But as I settled in and the story progressed, the excitement soon disintegrated.

The chemistry between the core group of friends was playful and fun. I enjoyed the various plays they made at the beginning, like the fishing one. The tone changed, however, when Mack started pursuing Nick. The lead up was entertaining and then the cracks started to show. Nick turned out to be a pretty awful person and it was hard to watch the scenes they shared together.

In fact, the main problem I had with this movie was in its characters. It is obvious from the get go that Adam has always held a torch for Mack, but we’re grasping at straws trying to piece together their history. And then there is Mack who is clearly running away from her true feelings. She makes a lot of questionable decisions which made it hard to root for her. Perhaps having some flashbacks with her and her parents showing their strong bond would have made me understand why she was so closed off in relationships.

Overall, Players could have been a home run, but instead it never really got off the ground. Had the characters been reworked slightly with more fleshed out backstories, it would have been more compelling and well rounded. I also would have cared about them more as a result.

Rating: ♥️♥️.5

It’s the last summer before college and Elle Evans (Joey King) is determined to make it the best one yet. Together with her best friend Lee (Joel Courtney), his girlfriend Rachel (Meganne Young) and Elle’s boyfriend Noah (Jacob Elordi), they make a plan to stay at the Flynn family beach house before it’s sold. But Elle has some decisions to make and she soon finds herself torn between Lee and Noah. Lee wants her to go to Berkeley with him like they always planned, but Noah is banking on her choosing Harvard where he studies. It will surely be a summer neither of them will forget.

I was curious to see how the final instalment of The Kissing Booth trilogy would come to a close. And while I was mostly satisfied with the ending, I have to say that everything leading up to it left much to be desired.

Elle and Noah are supposed to be this cute couple that you want to root for, but fuck were they annoying. I couldn’t take their constant back and forth and just wanted them to either sit down to talk or break up for good. Instead though, Elle was whiny and would turn to anyone but Noah to talk about their issues and Noah was just a straight up douche who would flee whenever a problem arose. To say it was exhausting watching them is an understatement.

I also didn’t think the way Lee treated Elle was right. They are supposed to be best friends who have each others’ back through it all and it didn’t seem that way. I understand her choosing between the two brothers is integral to the plot, however it got old fast. No wonder Elle could barely figure out what she wanted to do with her life. She was being pulled in every direction.

All in all, I kind of expected more from The Kissing Booth 3. While the story ended on a high, it was way too messy to get there in the first place and I’m happy it’s over.

Rating: ♥♥.5