When Kevin Smith made Clerks 2, somehow you knew he would end up making a third film to complete his trilogy. Maybe it shouldn’t have taken so long, but it’s nice to revisit this story 16 years later and nearly 30 years since the original film. I’m a huge fan of Kevin Smith. Not every one of his movies are great but then again, great filmmakers don’t always make a movie. They don’t stay perfect. When I look at Clerks 3, it’s like a 30-year high school reunion for everything comes full circle while reminiscing about the moments that made your life great. In a nutshell, this film is about what made the original Clerks film great and why it stands the test of time. As I watched it, I wonder if Kevin Smith just wanted to make a film that showed the behind-the-scenes of making his opus. That’s not necessarily a bad thing because making a movie about the process of making a movie can be very funny. State and Main is a great example, and a film called The Amateurs with Jeff Bridges where a group of filmmakers tries to make a porn film and it all goes to hell. Then they end up making a film about them trying to make a porn film. Clerks 3 is really just about the process he went through to make the first film but to examine all of the things that made up that story like the absurdity of humanity shown through the customers or the mundane atmosphere of working in a convenience store. None of these things are bad, but I think that you have to understand what this film really is and why it’s not on par with the original Clerks or even Clerks 2. Don’t get me wrong, I very much enjoyed it, but not through the lens of discovering an up-and-coming filmmaker who has a brilliant voice, but as a fan of a filmmaker who wants to reexamine the things he did great and therefore come full circle with his life.

The basic story of Clerks 3 is Randall Graves has a heart attack and decides that he wants to make a movie about his life working in a convenience store. Sound familiar! Yes, it’s a movie within a movie. The hilariousness of this film is seen in everything they go through to make an independent film and to put a script together of all these funny moments from their life that also include embarrassing moments of ex-girlfriends. It’s nice to have Veronica back from the original film. In fact, when you watch this movie, you’ll also see the original actors who portrayed customers come back and be in this film as well. However, as funny as clerks 3 is, there are also some very heartwarming moments where these characters have to come face to face with where their lives are now and did they move on from certain tragedies. I’ll leave it there because I don’t want to spoil anything.

I feel like in some ways these heartwarming moments kind of slow down the film and while they are necessary to make us reconnect with these characters and make them endearing, sometimes it goes on a little too long. When I watch a Kevin Smith film, I don’t want to feel sad and unfortunately, there’s too many moments where I do feel sad, but what makes it really work is Kevin Smith’s flair for comedy and his commentary on the absurdity of humanity is still within this film. Maybe it’s not as good as with the other two Clerks movies, so what, it still works. But if you’re a movie fan we all know that the third movie in a trilogy is usually the worst and that’s certainly fits for Clerks 3 compared to the other two films.

If there is a true message to Clerks 3, I think it’s for the character of Randall who learns to see the value in his life and of course he’ll put that into film that’s basically becoming the Kevin Smith of the story. But every great storyteller pick moments from their life to show to the world. It’s no secret that artists put themselves in their work. However, this film really is just about us revisiting these characters and seeing where they are 30 years later, hence the high School reunion reference. I think my biggest critique is that a lot of the comedy was sacrificed for these very emotional scenes where the characters are coming face-to-face with their own mortality and what their lives have become. It just lingers a little too long, but it’s also a necessary for this story to come full circle.

Here’s what makes this movie worth watching. Kevin Smith’s zany comedy also provides a great commentary not only on life but on movies and pop culture. He’s the ultimate geek that we all agree with. He’s like our nerd guru so some of his fantastic references for kids who obviously grew up in the ’80s are brilliant and you can’t help but laugh when Randall Graves is telling the doctor played by Amy Sedaris all about the Mandalorian series which obviously she’s in. I feel like Elias was funnier in Clerks 2, but him becoming a Satanist in this film and the changing of all his weird outfits going from cyberpunk to goth to things that I can’t even figure out we’re great. He is the comic relief that changes the mood with all his outfits because he’s finally exploring different lifestyles. There’s enough comic relief that makes this feel like a Clerk’s movie and allows us to revisit what we’ve loved about these films that makes the third one worth watching. But this is also very clearly Randall’s film. I wish there had been more done with Dante, but you also understand why it’s very much Randall’s story by the time you get to the end, and it should be. Clerks 3 is not the best film that Kevin Smith has ever made. It’s not his best-written work, but it was fun to revisit the characters that we met in 1994. It’s nice to have that reunion with them because if you grew up in the 80s and are about the same age as these characters in your late 40s approaching 5o then you’re trying to answer the same questions. Did we do enough with our life? Is our life even worth telling in a movie? Clerks 3 is a good enough film that gives a great ending to the story of Clerks, but you should also understand that the first and second acts of their story are the best parts. If this was the film where we were introduced to Kevin Smith as a filmmaker and we probably wouldn’t give him a second thought, but its commentary on his original film is brilliant and perfectly bookends the story of Clerks. Even an adequate film is still worth watching, especially when we get to revisit characters that we have grown up with and it’s still better than any high school reunion that you would ever go to. It’s a great send-off to the beloved characters of Dante Hicks and Randall Graves and their story at the Quick Stop.