Review: Clerks III

Image courtesy of Fathom Events.

The last time I had a positive reaction to one of Kevin Smith's films was "Clerks II." After having seen "Clerks III," that sentiment remains. And this is a shame because even when his forays into horror - "Red State," "Tusk" and "Yoga Hosers" - weren't exactly a successful career detour, a previous return to the well proved to be fruitful.

But as was the case with "Jay and Silent Bob Reboot" - a sequel to a Smith movie that I counted as an early strike-out - banking on nostalgia didn't work as well this time around. Whereas "Clerks II" took a soulful approach to the story of two guys with dead-end jobs who realized that they just really liked spending time together, this third film in the series merely mines for nostalgia by - at times literally - recreating scenes from the original "Clerks" shot-for-shot.

The premise is this: caustic Randall (Jeff Anderson) and beleaguered Dante (Brian O'Halloran) are still at the Quick Stop in New Jersey dealing with the same batch of regulars - Elias (Trevor Fehrman), from the second "Clerks" movie, shows up with a sidekick called Blockchain (Austin Zajur) in a running gag involving costume changes that quickly becomes tiresome - although Dante has had a major life change in that his wife, Becky (Rosario Dawson), has died and pops up randomly as a ghost of some sort to give him life lessons.

Randall has a "widow maker" heart attack - the type Smith himself miraculously survived some years back - and notes that he saw his life flash before his eyes.  "And it sucked," he quips. Dante suggests that Randall should make his own movie, rather than spend his life watching other movies, and an idea to chronicle the happenings of the Quick Stop becomes a screenplay that he decides to turn into a film.

But rather than Randall and Dante's adventures in filmmaking acting giving any further insight into their characters as the previous entry in this series did, "Clerks III" is content with regurgitating scenes - as they are being shot for the movie in black and white - from the original film, almost verbatim. Most of the original cast returns for scenes in which they recreate the past, but there's nothing that wasn't funnier or cleverer the first time around. Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Smith) show up for more antics.

Then, the movie takes a turn for the heavy, and Smith leans into sentimentality. The line "I wasn't even supposed to be here today" is used multiple times in the film's final third, all for different purposes, and the potential for a reflection on mortality is there - especially considering Smith's own life experience - but a sad moment comes and goes, and the film ends up pretty much exactly where the second one left off.

"Clerks III" is a disappointment, but it's also an unnecessary trip down memory lane for nostalgia's sake only. The second film in the series was poignant in exploring the two characters' low-key lives, but it left them in a place of moderate contentment and growth. It would have been fine to end the series there. This latest and - for pretty obvious reasons - final "Clerks" film feels like a regression for the characters and the series.