Metacritic reviews

While it offers some necessary growth for all of its characters, The Kissing Booth 2 can never resist looking and acting like dozens of other offerings of its genre ilk, unable to grow beyond basic complications and done-to-death dramas. And yet there are hints that its evolution has a few more tricks left to employ, its winking conclusion only one of them.

In broadening the world of the first film without really deepening it, The Kissing Booth 2 often feels more like a spinoff TV series—although at an unconscionable 132 minutes long, it’s hardly a breezy watch.

As I might have said during my own high school days, The Kissing Booth 2 is "mad stupid," but it's still not as overtly slappable as Netflix's other low-budget teen comedies.

Other questions to ponder: Is The Kissing Booth 2 a good movie? Yes and no. Is the acting adequate, if not necessarily good? Yes and no. Is it a wholly accurate depiction of young love in any era, past or present? Yes and no. The Kissing Booth 2 — directed, as was the first installment, by Vince Marcello — is kind of terrible and kind of wonderful.

If The Kissing Booth, stacked with regressive relationship dynamics, is Victorian in its views, The Kissing Booth 2 progresses to the midcentury.

The Kissing Booth 2 has some fun moments, especially for fans, but is ultimately an overwrought, overstuffed and overlong teen romcom sequel.

It delivers a few refreshing details by giving the heroine more agency in her quest to find happiness — yet not quite enough to justify its interminable run time.

The one saving grace is King, a genuinely delightful young actor who manages to hold your attention and empathy even if her underwritten character barely deserves it.

You can soak in the movie’s basic premise and overacting just as long as you know this pool’s shallow.

It’s long, dumb and there’s nothing below these high-school students’ conspicuously perfect complexions.