CLERKS III (2002 Lionsgate)

Directed by Kevin Smith

There was once a time when I would have bought anything with Kevin Smith’s name on it.  Clerks resonated.  Clerks II was side-splitting.  We waited for the next chapter in Dante and Randall’s lives, now owners of the Quick Stop and in control of their own destinies.  And we waited, and we waited, and that film never came.

Then Kevin Smith had a near-fatal heart attack.

Clerks III was scrapped and a new version written.  It is this version that I watched the other night.

I may be the wrong person to review this film.  Take everything you read here with several large grains of salt.

I was not prepared for a movie this dark.  I knew that plot involved Randall having a heart attack and deciding to make a film of his life story.  I did not know how much other tragedies were to come for other characters.  I was triggered a bit by some hospital scenes and didn’t enjoy these bits at all.

I felt that Clerks III was two things:

• Kevin telling a dark story that reflects where he was at that point in his life.
• Kevin re-making Clerks.

The movie alternates between these two tones.  I respect the right of a filmmaker to to express themselves in any way they desire, but Clerks III was not the instalment for me.

There was one meta-humour moment with Amy Sedaris having a conversions with Randall involving The Mandalorian, which is funny since Amy Sedaris on that show.  So there are those things still happening, and of course all the self-references back to past movies in the View Askewniverse.  I guess that’s more the movie I wanted, rather than [SPOILER] …all this death.

2/5 stars