Three films into its latest “chapter” (this one subtitled “Gods and Monsters”), James Gunn and Peter Safran’s DCU can’t be faulted for making interesting choices. Hell, at least they’re making choices at all. Kicking off their incarnation of the latest run of comic book movies with “Superman” was unquestionably smart (it’s Superman! you know him!), even if its follow-up “Supergirl” was destined to divide audiences (even if this critic quite liked it, surely there are other reasons why some members of this seemingly dedicated audience didn’t, no matter its quality).
Enter: “Clayface.” Another set of execs and filmmakers wouldn’t have bellied up to this grim, gross anti-hero to round out their first trio of movies meant to reset a massive franchise. But does that kind of ambition and vision pay off in James Watkins‘ goopy, gory, decidedly R-rated body horror feature? Not so much, even as open-minded audiences will likely admire the big swings on offer here. It’s certainly different, and for comic book movie fans absolutely bored to death by the same old stuff, it’s something of a respite. Yet, divorced from all that, Watkins’ film confounds much more than it compels.
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A working knowledge of Clayface lore is not required to understand the film — the script from Mike Flangan and Hossein Amini lays out the essentials with ease, before collapsing in the film’s second half — though it’s perhaps helpful to know that that he’s always been imagined as a Batman adversary. Fair enough. Those bones of the story (bones! those will soon be in short supply!) hint at perhaps why he was chosen for this early story in the new DCU: get some Batman winks in there, introduce us to Gotham City, toy with some dark underbelly stuff.
Flanagan and Amini also latch on to another bit of early Clayface backstory: he’s an actor, a pretty natty way to make horrific facial scarring really hurt. Matt Hagen (Tom Rhys Harries, very good at conveying genuine pathos under gobs of makeup and VFX) is a Gotham City native, a wrong-side-of-the-tracks kid who is on the cusp of superstardom. When we first meet him, he’s about to be nominated for a major award (on-screen graphics don’t say what it is, though someone later calls it an Academy Award, sure), fielding great new offers, and trying to stay grounded. His best pal Corey (Joshua James) helps, as do his frequent mentions of his fraught early life.
Matt is, by all accounts, a nice guy. He introduces himself to the pretty flight attendant on the private jet! He’s sweet to his agent! He goes back home to Gotham to chat with other rising young performers! But Matt is also — and this is something the film can never quite square — a bit too easily swayed by a pretty face and a night out at the club. When an alluring young lady (Joana Ribeiro) makes eyes at him across the dance floor, he can’t resist (even when she tells him she’s an aspiring actor; run, dude!). Thank goodness Corey is on hand to remind Matt that his new paramour is the girlfriend of local mob boss Markos Szabo (David Dencik). Too bad that Matt just doesn’t care.
Well, that’s life in Gotham City (perpetually damp, grimy, and graffiti-covered), and when Matt and Mia wake up the next morning, they’re surrounded by Markos and his band of (lightly Dick Tracy-coded) toughs. Markos, understandably ticked off (and somehow aware that Corey had told Matt that Mia was taken), takes out all his toxic masculine rage on Matt’s gorgeous face, carving him up and leaving him to deal with it. Gross, goopy, gory, bloody, and just plain meaty, Matt’s physical ailments aren’t shied away from at all, and Watkins’ dedication to going full body horror is admirable.
And the attendant facial disfigurations are bad enough (remember, Matt is an actor, he really needs his face), but what follows is arguably worse. Believing he might find justice (in Gotham City?!), Matt tries to take legal action against Markos. What follows: character assassinations, horrific surgeries, financial lootings, and the total decimation of life as he knows it. Which is all to say, when Matt meets Dr. Caitlyn Corr (Naomi Ackie), he’s willing to do anything to get a slice of his life back. And Caitlyn sure loves slicing, dicing, and toying with “nanocells” (not clay, sorry) that Matt believes can fix his visage.
Great news! It does! Well, for a time. Hellbent on getting his life back (via his face), Matt overdoses on those damn nanocells and promptly becomes a monster, both figuratively and literally. Gone is our sweet young actor, instead replaced by a snarling, revenge-obsessed freak who is scared (and then delighted) to discover he can shift his face into whatever he wants, whoever he wants, whenever he wants. (A subplot about how Caitlyn can calm him feels terribly shoehorned in to add an icky romance dimension.)
Increasingly muddy effects and plotting don’t do Matt’s transformations many favors — the film does much better, clever work when he’s just slipping between different faces, zipping behind a door and emerging as someone else. The mechanics of those transformations aren’t clear either: are they subconscious? does he need to think of someone to “become” them? touch them? can he make their clothes too? or is that also skin? We’re spinning out just thinking on it. At least these moments allow some supporting stars, including Eddie Marsan and James, the chance to have quite a bit of fun playing Matt “playing” their characters.
A few meaty set pieces help, too, including a truly stomach-churning sequence set on an airplane (turbulence and nanocells are a bad mix) and a third act revenge-driven visit to the club that gives Rhys Harries plenty to chew on (to say nothing of some of Matt’s biggest foes). But the uneven nature of the film, its plotting, its character motivations, and its aims only become bigger and bloodier as the film winds on. Malleable, sure, but this ambitious misfire can never conform to one shape, one final form, or one good idea.
Grade: C+
Warner Bros. will release “Clayface” in theaters on Friday, October 23.