[Source: AP]
Someone rather bluntly popped up on X recently to ask Hollywood writer-producer James Gunn a pointed — and here sanitized — question: “Who asked for a ‘Clayface’ movie??”
Gunn, the guy behind the seriously weird “Guardians of the Galaxy” franchise, clapped back, asking who called for “Back to the Future,” “Casablanca” or “Weapons,” among others. “Clayface” may have no right belonging at that exalted level, but after seeing it, the score is Random Internet Hater, 0; Gunn, 1.
“Clayface” is a surprisingly good revenge thriller-romance, body-horror origin story for a lesser-known villain from the Batman comics.
We may not have asked for it, but it’s a crowd-pleaser, mimicking its title character’s ability to be a little something for everyone.
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James Watkins directs from a screenplay by Mike Flanagan and Hossein Amini, part of Gunn and Peter Safran’s first wave of DC Studios films, following “Superman” and “Supergirl.”
Tom Rhys Harries stars as Matt Hagen, a pretty-boy rising actor whose long road from poverty finally nets him an Oscar nomination and industry respect. Cue celebratory drinks at a nightclub.
Except that night he gets involved with a mobster’s girlfriend and the mobster isn’t happy, using a switchblade to carve open our hero’s face. And without those cheekbones and perky nose, he’s finished.
“My life is over,” he wails. Harries brings a sweet hangdog defiance to the role.
He soon thinks he’s found salvation in Dr. Caitlyn Corr, a rebel scientist on the cutting edge of nanotechnology, played with real soul by Naomi Ackie.
He offers to be her human guinea pig and she injects him with her still-unproven serum of stem cells that begin to repair his scarred face.
It works and the movie’s over. No, no, of course not. The serum does work but only temporarily — leaving Hagen’s face droopier than after a visit to the orthodontist — and Corr has to find a way to stabilize the experiment.