Part of the beauty of Batman is the richness of his rogues’ gallery. Characters such as The Joker, Catwoman, and The Penguin have made their mark on popular culture for almost a hundred years. Clayface, who made his debut in 1940, around the same time as many iconic Gotham villains, is still an enigma to many outside of the comic book world.
The film Clayface centers on the Matt Hagen version of the character (not to be confused with Basil Karlow, the original Clayface). Hagen (Tom Rhys Harries) is an actor on the rise. After a night out celebrating his Academy Award nomination, he finds himself in trouble after sleeping with the girlfriend of notorious crime boss Markos Szabo (David Dencik), who disfigures his face in revenge.
Fearful for his career, Hagen spends his fortune on plastic surgery and a civil lawsuit against Szabo, who uses his leverage to escape justice. Running low on money and options, Hagen seeks out the services of Dr. Caitlyn Corr (Naomi Ackie), who is working on a technology to heal damaged tissue. Skirting government regulations, Hagen convinces Dr. Corr to operate on him, becoming Clayface in the process.
Director James Watkins demonstrates ample talent in the body horror genre. The film is occasionally so unsettling that it’s hard to watch. Few comic book movies, let alone one that’s nominally part of a shared universe, would dare to explore such grotesqueness on screen.
Harries puts forth an admirable effort in the lead role. Hagen is easy to root for, a character who always stands up for himself, and doesn’t let anything get in his way. While Clayface has occasionally served as a hero in the comics, Watkins doesn’t take the easy way out. This Clayface is allowed to be a villain, while still retaining a degree of sympathy for the character.
While the film excels at body horror, it’s far less successful at exploring its characters. Hagen and Corr have a bit of a romance that isn’t needed at all. The whole experience would have been more successful if that time had been dedicated to exploring Hagen as an individual beyond his quest for revenge.
The pacing is a bit of a mixed bag. There is a sense of confidence to the way the story allows itself to gradually unfold without much urgency during its 108-minute runtime, but a lot of that is also undeserved. Clayface is never boring, but it’s also fundamentally not that interesting either.
To a certain extent, it’s kind of fun to see a DC film embrace the B-movie format. Not every superhero movie needs to center itself on saving the world. As a comic book character, Clayface has a heartbreaking narrative that is ripe for this kind of treatment.
Watkins orbits something really compelling. The film manages a Gotham setting without making its audience pine for a certain Caped Crusader. That dynamic would work a lot better if the film brought anything new to the table, a narrative mostly functioning on autopilot.
Serviceable is not exactly what the DCU needs right now, but Clayface’s biggest strength is that it doesn’t really care about some broader expanded universe. If only it were a little more interested in telling an original story. It’s not a bad movie by any means, but the pieces could have added up to something so much more.