Clerks III (2022) ✦ Full-Length Watchalong Reaction
Added 2025-08-09 01:15:01 +0000 UTCAnd now I am finally caught up on the View Askew! This is the first and only 4 star rating that I have given a Kevin Smith movie so far! Ranked in between Zack and Miri and Mallrats. This genuinely had the same level of heart that I felt during Jersey Girl.
I definitely had expectations set going in from YouTube commenters, but I didn't mind as much. This was a fine time for me and I hope you enjoy the reaction! [Direct link here.]
✦ KL
Comments
I loved your reaction. This movie hit me right in the feels when I saw it during its limited theatrical run. And I’m a grown ass man, but when Dante started to leave the theater with Becky, the tears started flowing because I realized that he was about to die. And these characters are my age and have been a part of my life since the mid 90s. It felt like visiting with old friends every time I got to see them on screen. So it felt like I lost an old buddy when Dante died. And it’s sad to think that we’ll probably never get to visit with them again.
Justin Gonyea
2025-08-16 03:05:54 +0000 UTCThis was a first time watch for me. I didn’t find Clerks II or Reboot particularly rewatchable, limiting my interest in this movie. And then I only heard negative criticism about it being boring and not funny. Clearly people wanted crass Kevin Smith and this didn’t give those fans what they wanted. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I shed some tears when we lost Dante, your crying did not help me hold it in. I also liked that this wasn’t a “day in the life” like the first two. We saw the characters interacting and working together over a period of time. And it was the only way to tell this story. I like that Kevin Snith took his heart attack story and used it a circular springboard to tell the story of how Clerks came to be. I’m glad I saw it and I’m glad I waited and watched it alongside your first watch. It’s really fun getting verbal commentary eerily similar to my own thoughts as the story unfolds. And not knowing what’s coming next with you engages me on another level than just watching a new film. I also suggest you check out The 4:30 Movie (which I did drop into the recommendation form a couple weeks ago) Kevin Smith’s most recent release. It’s worth your time and while not View Askew per se, neither is Jersey Girl, which is my personal favorite. Then Chasing Amy, followed by Clerks, then Mallrats because I am Gen X and was a comic book nerd teenager in the 90’s. Kevin Smith nails a lot of it in his early films.
Bryan Dempsey
2025-08-15 03:46:40 +0000 UTCWhen I first saw this film, I rated it harshly. But on a second viewing, it’s actually not that bad. In fact, I quite liked it—I even got a little teary-eyed, I won’t lie. Still, I think Kevin Smith is an accidental filmmaker: he made a great, almost art-house indie classic, but judging by everything after Clerks—and by this film’s epilogue—his real vision was more mainstream. He says that when he watches Clerks he always sees it in colour, because that’s how he lived it. That’s touching… but it’s also a bit like Johnny Rotten saying that when he listens to “God Save the Queen” he hears himself singing like Adele—and then every subsequent PiL song is him trying to sound like Adele. I just wish he’d have the confidence not to drop a stock music bed under every line of dialogue. There’s a line by Paul Muldoon that goes: “All great artists are their own greatest threat, as when they aim the industrial laser at themselves and cut themselves back to the root.” If only Smith would take that risk.
Sam
2025-08-13 22:18:47 +0000 UTCEven before Google destroyed their own service with AI bullshit, I found that movie running times were constantly wrong on there. I have no idea where that information is pulled from, but I would recommend *always* going to IMDb or Letterboxd for running times. This is just a guess, so I could be wrong, but since you never mentioned it in the reaction to Jay and Bob Reboot or this, I wonder if you're aware that Kevin Smith himself suffered a massive heart attack in 2018. "The Widowmaker" comes straight from his own life: he was starting to feel weird right before going on stage, and he thought the joint he'd smoked was too strong. When he threw up, he knew he had to go to the hospital, where the doctor who treated Smith told him he actually had 100% blockage in his LAD artery. It's why Smith completely slimmed down between Clerks II and Jay and Silent Bob reboot: he switched to a vegan diet. A heart attack was the same thing that killed his own father, too. (As far as the story about your dad goes, I might wonder if the reason the doctor in this movie acts so casual is that medical technology has simply improved to the point where it would be more like this, as I imagine Kevin is, as always, drawing from his life.) You noticed that Anderson was not in Reboot. Anderson has long said that he doesn't think of himself as an actor, having been talked into making the first Clerks. In turn, he was the last holdout for Clerks II, but ultimately agreed. In 2017, Smith had a script written, involving the Quick Stop being destroyed by a hurricane, but when it came to getting Anderson on board, Smith and Anderson had a falling out, and Smith initially thought the movie would never be made. Then he had the heart attack, he and Anderson were able to patch things up, and the new version of the movie that drew from Smith's own life was written in place of the original script. One of the few things in the movie that is altered from reality is the reason for shooting in black-and-white. The original Clerks was shot in B&W simply because B&W film stock cost less than color, so it was a budgetary choice. As far as those people being contacted by Smith to be in the movie, so many of them are his actual friends, family members, and people he continues to work with on podcasts and other ventures, so my guess is that none of them were surprised.
Tyler Foster
2025-08-09 07:39:52 +0000 UTCClerks II reaction here (and edited for the channel too) if you're interested!
kaiielle
2025-08-09 03:19:32 +0000 UTCWoah I didn't even know there was a Clerks 2. They're definitely looking older these days.
Chris Thom
2025-08-09 03:01:48 +0000 UTC
