The meta aspects of the story actually serve a greater emphasis on mortality — what it means to lose people, what it means to face your own death, and how that makes you consider what you’ll end up leaving behind.

| Oct 14, 2022

For ageing Gen-Xers, however, there’s an irresistible sensibility underpinning the enterprise; they can’t call it a midlife crisis if you’ve always been disgruntled and surly.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 23, 2022

A self-conscious detour into navel-gazing.

| Sep 16, 2022

Very occasionally charming, but also barrel-scraping.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 16, 2022

Like the junk food that the central characters sell in their convenience store, it’s a strangely moreish brew that you enjoy but feel faintly guilty about consuming, like nachos with cheese-flavoured sauce or a blue slushy ice drink.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 15, 2022

“Clerks III” may not be the last go-round for these characters, but it probably should be if its inability to make inventory-taking richly funny or meaningful is any indication.

| Sep 14, 2022

Frankly, "Clerks" really isn't the kind of title meant to have II's and III's attached to it, but Smith has delivered an affectionate ode to the film he made that launched his career

| Sep 13, 2022

With Clerks III, nostalgia is its own convenience for Smith. It’s cheap and fleeting, but it is comforting.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Sep 13, 2022

It’s admirable that Kevin Smith keeps these guys relegated to their Jersey bubble, but we’re living in an era full of Dantes and Randals, and by now they feel cliché, not comforting.

| Sep 12, 2022

[It's] a little like watching a silver-haired rocker in his 50s covering his breakout hits from the 1990s while telling stories ABOUT those hits between numbers. But that’s kind of a blast, isn’t it?

| Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 9, 2022

Kevin Smith toys with death in Clerks III as a shortcut to bring emotion to a film that otherwise has no meaningful hook.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Sep 9, 2022

“Clerks III” is a movie for die-hard fans and die-hards only.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Sep 9, 2022

It’s comedically uneven and overly distracted by side-characters, but when Clerks III gets to the heart of Dante and Randal’s decades-long friendship it’s enough to assure you that Kevin Smith is still open for business.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 9, 2022

Devotees of Smith and his View Askewniverse will likely delight in the tribute he made to his own masterpiece, even if the main emotion it evokes is a strong desire to rewatch “Clerks.”

| Original Score: B- | Sep 8, 2022

Clerks III, flawed as it is, is his heartfelt farewell to the Quick Stop.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 8, 2022

Smith seems content to let “Clerks III” focus on the “dram” part of the word “dramedy,” and it suits his melancholic characters even though it’s only moderately entertaining.

| Sep 8, 2022

If you haven't been on board for decades, steer clear.

| Sep 8, 2022

[Smith's] idea of meta fails to split the difference between the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the French New Novel. It has more the manner of a pinball in a machine that’s about to enter tilt mode.

| Sep 8, 2022

“Clerks” devotees may find something in it, all six or seven of them. But they probably don’t need to see it. They’re all in the movie.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Sep 8, 2022