Filmmaker and geek extraordinaire Kevin Smith seemingly left his View Askewniverse world of interlinked films behind with 2006’s Clerks II, and with unexpectedly poignant closure. But after a decade spent in the wilderness of low-budget comedy-horror, Smith revived this fictional universe of terminally stunted geeks with 2019’s Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, and Clerks III continues to find him plumbing the personal well of nostalgia.
At first, though, there’s a promising new angle from which Smith approaches the material. The filmmaker suffered a massive heart attack in 2018 that he was fortunate to survive, an event that informs Clerks III right out of the gate when Randal (Jeff Anderson) has a coronary. It’s an experience that leaves Randal honestly and soberly contemplating that he is a 50-year-old man still stuck referencing the same movies that he loved as a teenager and young adult. Driven suddenly to make art rather than simply consume it, Randal commits to writing and directing a movie that very quickly starts to sound an awful lot like Clerks.
This isn’t the first time that Smith has effectively told his own story as an aspiring filmmaker, having filtered his experience through the prism of adult movies in 2008’s Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Here, however, he merely replicates his much-told story of making his 1994 breakthrough feature, which takes the form of an endless series of winking allusions to factoids like Clerks’s $25,000 budget amid a tedious restaging of that film’s story beats. Smith doesn’t dig into any of this recycled material for new laughs, merely prioritizing the hollow pleasure of recognition when actors pause for effect after each obvious callback.
It doesn’t help matters that Clerks even looks better than its latest sequel, as that film’s minimalist aesthetic, while amateurish, effectively reflected its depiction of menial labor and its characters’ misplaced presumptions of having some kind of artistic spirit. Clerks III, meanwhile, is all flat, faded colors captured with a camera that cannot hold a shot for more than a few seconds before darting off to adopt another equally uninteresting angle.
Despite taking place in the same convenience store in Leonardo, New Jersey, as the original film, Clerks III loses the claustrophobia of the setting and with it the inherent tension that gave Clerks its lived-in sense of place. Smith, as his mainstay character Silent Bob, even offers a compelling analysis of his debut film’s aesthetic choices, which only calls attention to the meaningless flatness of his work here. Smith has long wielded his self-deprecation as a defense mechanism against charges of technical incompetence, among other things, but at this point his problem is one of creative stasis and how it’s seeing outright regression.
The characters of this film feel more like their 1994 selves than their more reflective 2006 iterations, albeit saddled with Smith’s now-tired dramatic tropes. As the writer-director did in 2004’s Jersey Girl, he gives the protagonist a dead wife, revealing in the first scene that Dante’s (Brian O’Halloran) partner, Becky (Rosario Dawson), died in the intervening years. Dawson shows up for a number of dream sequences to revive the unexpected chemistry she had with O’Halloran in Clerks II, so Becky’s absence in the real world exists for the sole purpose of saddling him with grief that’s only detectable when he directly references it.
Dante’s loss also gives Smith the justification to arrive at an awfully familiar conclusion, in which the infinitesimally more mature character finally unloads on their friend for being oblivious to their own selfishness, leading to a moment of reflection and reconciliation. Once upon a time, this gimmick achieved touching results, but it’s so played out in this film that even the harsh denouement that follows it feels trite. Smith toys with death here not as an attempt to reckon with mortality but as a shortcut to bring emotion to a film that otherwise has no meaningful hook. The blunt coda has nothing on the simple profundity of Clerks II’s underlying message of finding peace and purpose in accepting that sometimes temporary dead-end jobs become the permanent career you kept hoping you’d find.
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Tell me you like superficial bullish without telling me you like superficial bullish. How do you have a job?
Spoiler much??
Smith is just a Hollywood hack and shill now. Everything he does will be influenced by that fact. He won’t do anything that would risk him getting pushed out now that he’s on the inside. Any geek cred he had is long gone.
It seems you were more concerned with using your vocabulary than actually giving a review of this film. You may also be a bit jaded.
That’s every film critic though. Rather than actually reviewing movies,
they’re more concerned with making readers think that they’re geniuses. Go read the “top critic” reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and you’ll never want to stop vomiting from the sheer pretension.
The review wasn’t that hard to read guys lol. This person perfectly summarized Kevin’s career nowadays as J&SB Reboot proved: “Smith doesn’t dig into any of this recycled material for new laughs, merely prioritizing the hollow pleasure of recognition when actors pause for effect after each obvious callback.” I attended his reboot road show and was thoroughly annoyed with my fellow fans for the thunderous applause the provided every time a familiar face essentially parodied a 20-year old scene from a former film. Kevin doesn’t trust himself to be creative and doesn’t seem to have anything left to say. His movies are starting to feel like a “not much, you?” response to the question, “what’s up?” Not sure I’m willing to spend $ to see this one.
Not a fan of Kevin Smith anymore but you write like someone who just learned what a thesaurus is.
This review stinks of wanting to be pompous and smug for the sole purpose of being so. It offered no real insight or thought into the actual film, merely came
Off as someone who enjoys reading themselves have an opinion for the sake of self importance. This so called critic seems more
So impotent when it comes to rising anyones curiosity of their actual insight rather than offering any take that is thought provoking, or hell even informative. In other words the critic comes off like a child who has dog piss taste and only possesses pedantic hot takes.
Said the person who used the words “impotent” and “pedantic” when criticizing someone for their extensive vocabulary. WHILE REVIEWING A KEVIN SMITH MOVIE. Fuck. Get a real hobby.
Dude, its super easy, just don’t watch it, but I’ll bet your one of the Howard Stern non fans that Will watch it just to rag on it right? Why don’t you make a movie and show the world how creative you are instead of Trashing one you haven’t even seen yet? NEVER reading anything from Slant again if this is the trash talk they publish. Blocked. And learn to laugh dude, you’ll live longer. Nuff said.
He became a Democrat..no way in HELL is he going to betray them by doing anything slightly creative, entertaining or original. Serve up the pablum and send in the checks. Just like the other sheep. At least he didn’t turn all the characters gay.
Does everything have to be about politics? Your WHOLR personality?
I have not enjoyed a lot of kevin smith’s newer projects. However…
I saw this movie with him at the Keswick this week, and I found it to be amazing. If you enjoy classic smith films, you’ll love this. I think it was one of the best written, and we’ll produced of his career. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry…you’ll go home wanted to see it again
Agreed. Except for the wanting to see it again. To be clear, I very much do, but I left the movie feeling just emotionally drained. So, it’ll be awhile before I think I can handle that again. Which is a good thing.
I like reviews.
It’s pretty simple. Kevin Smith is just retelling the same stories from a different perspective. He’s not hiding it. He admitted it by doing Reboot
It’s his form of art, so it’s subjective. I, however, enjoy it. His form of humor is not for everyone it seems.
Blah review.
This sounds like it was written by someone who is still butthurt about He-Man
Thanks for the spoiler, you ****ing hack.
The spoilers were REALLY unnecessary, especially without a warning.
Wow! What a spiteful, little twatwaffle. Sounds like Kevin ate your last twinky. Whatever your deal is with Kevin Smith is, for your own well being, let it go. It must be hard to go through life that miserable.
This reviewers parents obviously never hugged him.
Screw you dude, you will never understand the true genius of Kevin Smith. How this movie was for thise he loves around him, and to the fans that fell in love with a silly vlack and white movie that spoke to us. I am from New Jersey and I get alot of the inside jokes, and word play. Yet, to see those who aren’t from New Jersey that love him are truly inspiring to see. He speaks to us nobodies in the mundane life that beats us down. How true friendships are made, and how they evolve into something you will never understand. Shove your review, and I’m glad you could care less about the movie because I could care less about you and your dribble of a review.
Love this!!!
If you really believe what you wrote (and it’s the writing of a 3rd grader), you don’t understand what Clerks is about. It makes a time for its viewers, first as 20 somethings in our first, crappy job. Then, as 30 somethings with a slightly less crappy job, falling in love, having kids. And, now 3, where the loyal viewers are the age where heart attacks and death start getting personal. Go back to watching Parker Lewis Can’t Lose reruns.
I’m saying this as the kind of Kevin Smith/Askewniverse fan who LITERALLY has dogs named Dante and Randal and had massive birthday parties to celebrate turning 37 (not 40)…Clerks III was fun because of the callbacks, the nostalgia, and the cameos. I walked out of the theater at the end (stay past the credits…Kevin tells stories during the credits and there’s a “behind the scenes” short after). I was really looking forward to seeing ONE of those two happy and succeeding like Kevin has, and I was ultimately disappointed in the outcome. It felt like a cop out. Bad choice of words…
I already saw it and I felt it was well done. I haven’t seen a Kevin Smith movie since Clerks2 but I enjoy his work. From my perspective, I saw a more grown up version of Clerks1.
It wasn’t win an award good, but have any of his movies ever been? It did add a layer of two to his usual style and felt more grown up to me. But it was also extremely meta, if you haven’t seen Clerks before you won’t get a lot of it.
Overall definitely worth seeing if you like Kevin Smith. Brian O’Halloran deserves accolades for his raw performance as Dante, and he deserves to be mentioned.
To each their own… But, I’d guess you really don’t have a real connection to the first two movies. If you did, this move would have carried more weight. It wasn’t nostalgia for the sake of it re: Hocus Pocus 2. It wasn’t the best sequel 10+ years later recently re: Maverick. Yet, layers apon layers the dialogue most likely appealed to anyone that was a huge fan of the proceeding films
I really believe the cleverness and genius of this film was lost on you, but I don’t hate you for it. However, don’t hate me when I say this film has me in tears. It has me laughing.. It had me feeling my age and get gave me hope.
This was a fitting end.
Please excuse the typos. Haha
I’ll be the first to admit I didn’t like Jay & Silent Bob The ReBoot. It wasn’t very good. But Clerks 3 was good. Yes the camera work isn’t Spielberg quality so the hell what? You don’t watch a Kevin Smith film for the f***ing camera work or lighting. You watch it for the laughs the silly and sometimes insane humor gives you. You watch it for the surprising moments of emotion.
This isn’t a film made for critics who think they know what a good film is and critique the god**** camera angles. This was a film for those of us who grew up watching Clerks, Clerks 2, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma and all the Viewaskew films. It was a fill with a touching and great ending that puts the perfect bow on the story of Dante and Randall.
Folks ignore this ridiculous review. In fact never trust this guy for a review of anything. If you like classic Kevin Smith films you’ll enjoy Clerks 3.
Do all the Kevin Smith drones have a discord somewhere that posts links to bad reviews of this lousy film? It’s like a swarm of petty nerds childishly attacking the guy who dared to not like a bombing film.
Clerks III feels like Smith’s most personal movie so far. It recaptures much of what made Clerks resonate with a generation of film audiences 27 years ago in a surprisingly heartfelt assessment of the myriad experiences — both funny and tragic.
The move is a journey through Smith’s own, life-changing ordeal and a snapshot of how such an experience can bring your own mortality and the sum of your life into sharper focus.
And like Smith and the Clerks characters, we’ve all been through a lot in the last few decades. Happiness, losses, hopes, and regrets have a way of piling up, and change is inevitable, no matter how hard we resist it. Clerks wraps things up perfectly with a satisfying blend of self-awareness and narrative thread-tying, but it does something even more impressive by letting the story go where it needs to go in order for fans of the original movie to connect with those characters again.
Sure, it’s comedically uneven and definitely resolutely one for the fans for many reasons, including that the original ending to Clerks where Dante was supposed to die – but if you’ve long bought into Kevin Smith’s sprawling self-mythology, this is a surprisingly moving chapter to end the saga.
The amount of whiny Kevin Smith fanboys in this comment section is bizarre. The film was incredibly bad. It was not funny or witty or insightful. Just lame and depressing.
If you liked the previous films, this is just a boring repetition of jokes and anecdotes you had already heard, told by people in their 50s. Then a character you like dying.
If you didn’t like the previous films this is an utter pile of unwatchable dogsssshite.
Clerks 3 is the Terminator: Dark Fate of Smith’s filmography, annihilating the achievement of Clerks 2 as sourly and unimaginatively as Dark Fate rendered Terminator 2 pointless.