Well, folks we have finally reached the quintuple of the After film series. We’re up to After Everything and look at that we have finally found a title I didn’t instantly cringe at. This one will be a little sombre as they finally did it, they’re giving After the bow it should have gotten four movies ago. Despite the last movie being called After Ever Happy, this one here is apparently the grand finale of Tessa and Hardin’s ever-so-dysfunctional love story. An ending I can’t imagine going well, but let’s see what they’ve come up with. By the way, we’re spoiling everything about this bad boy, so if you care beware.

So After Everything pretty much starts off with a barrage of flashbacks from the last movie. If you don’t remember Hardin accidentally published a best-selling novel about his and Tessa’s relationship, which makes Tessa so upset that she finally leaves Hardin for good. Two years have passed and Tessa has moved on to another guy, while Hardin is still dwelling on the breakup all these years later. I appreciate it took until the final movie to change up the narrative as this film is solely focused on Hardin. Even though I thought Tessa was the main character of these movies, for this final movie she is barely in it. For a good chunk of the movie, we only see her in flashbacks to the previous films, only because Hardin is so lovesick over her. So how about that Hardin is finally in the driver’s seat. I guess out of him and Tessa, Hardin is the most interesting to watch, as he is the character that makes these movies because of how especially annoying and problematic he is.

Like the other After movies, these plots can be rather unpredictable, because of how poorly constructed they are. The first 15 minutes or so is just Hardin moping about Tessa, in his drunken stupor while a bunch of beautiful women who think he’s hot for some reason try to cheer him up. This pretty much qualifies for the rest movie as the main plot has Hardin going to Lisbon trying to rekindle his relationship with this girl from his past, whilst moping about thinking about Tessa while this new girl and her attractive friends try to cheer him up. An interesting thing about this girl is you wouldn’t believe it, but this film will try to pretend as if she has been here the whole time, but I can confirm she hasn’t. Not jarring in the slightest that a new character we have never heard of is a focal point for the final movie of a long-running series. These two characters separated because Hardin accidentally leaked their sex tape to his friends. Reuniting with Hardin all these years she has completely forgiven him for embarrassing and running her life and is now she is eagerly waiting to have sex with him again.

This film is actually about Hardin seeking redemption so he can be worthy to be with Tessa again. Though it’s pretty funny he wants redemption for making the stupidest decision in this entire series. He achieves this by doing nothing, outside of moping for the entire movie. Not that he needs to try as all the women of his past just forgive him anyway despite the terrible things he has done. They forgive him only on the basis that they think he’s hot and he has an irresistible broodest charm. I think if this wasn’t the fifth movie, I might be able to buy Hardin wanting to improve himself because otherwise he has already tried that in the previous four movies and it never worked out. I guess with it being the final movie everyone will happily sing Kumbaya with Hardin because this time he will stop drinking, this time he stop antagonising people when things don’t go his way and finally he won’t ever publish a book without his girlfriend’s permission.

I must admit as someone who has been watching these movies for almost five years I feel a little let-down by the ending. The Kissing Booth trilogy as bad as that was, the ending had a bit more going on than After’s ending. So it all ends at a wedding of two characters who I believe were in the other movies, but more importantly, Tessa is a bride’s maid and Hardin is the best man. Tessa is now single, so Hardin swoops in so they can have sex again at the wedding, and you know what screw it, Hardin proposes. This might rival Twilight for the most baffling endings to a popular book series. This series ends with Hardin and Tessa having sex and immediately hooking up, which we have seen happen in every one of these films, which is so laughable to me. Except this time we jump to the future Hardin and Tessa are still together and they had kids, so I’m guessing we’re supposed to believe they didn’t break up about 50 times in between then. I am lost at how anticlimactic that was and most importantly this is the most unbelievable ending they could have gone with. Hardin hooking up with that flight attendant that he randomly fantasizes about on the way to Lisbon would have been more believable than another unremarkable hook-up with Tessa. I would have taken Hardin hooking up with any of the other girls in this movie, then Tessa again, which is as stupid as most things in this series. You had me going there After I was expecting something interesting, more so some sort of bloodbath from Hardin, but not something I have already seen. Despite how plotless and uninspired this series can be, clearly the writer for this just gave up when it came to creating a proper ending to this series. So you can now call me disappointed.

In the end, After Everything might be the best sequel in this series. Only because it changes up the narrative and the stupid stuff is more vastly spread out than the other films. However, this is where it loses points for being one of the more boring entries in the series as not much happens. Hardin I can now say is terrible as a protagonist, besides a terrible male love interest. The biggest positive I can give is this is the end of After and I don’t see myself revisiting these movies anytime soon. I need to have some dignity for myself. I have been The Blog Complainer, signing out.