A film that may be just the most ‘alright’ film ever that further dims the already dim light of the DCU.
- Director – James Watkins
- Runtime – 108 minutes
- Certificate – 18
- Country – United States
That line may read bad but the film really isn’t. It’s perfectly fine. Nothing special but nothing offensively bad. It’s just I don’t think it’s a good stepping stone for the DCU.
It starts out quite rocky with it not fleshing out Matt Hagen (Tom Rhys Harries) enough. You get a sense of who he is but nothing more than that. While the film tells you a lot about him in fairness, it never shows you anything. I’m not expecting to be shown every little thing considering that these events are his origin but he’s built on the rags to riches archetype and keeps going on about his childhood, it gets to a point. It’s made even worse when they cast Emmy award winning actor Aaron Paul to play the unconfirmed role of Hagen’s dad for literally a second when it’s obvious he had more scenes that were cut.
His lack of characterisation can most likely be rooted back to the script. A lot of speculation can be had as to how much of the original script remains but I can tell you one thing – that is not a finalised Mike Flanagan script. At times it’s painfully one-dimensional with the most mundane lines being said – especially when it tries to comment on its own themes of identity. It doesn’t delve beyond what we are seeing on the screen. The only way they attempt this is by repeatedly saying who the real Matt Hagen is, or him saying himself he doesn’t know who he is.
One constant throughout is the performances. Tom Rhys Harries gives a tragic enough performance to sell us on that aspect of the story where you can understand the action he takes later on in the film. Naomi Ackie as Dr Caitlyn Corr took me a bit by surprise – I didn’t expect her to have this kind of role but I am very glad she did. Being Hagen’s emotional rock she gives this almost nurturing performance and I completely bought it. I wish I could say the same thing about David Denick as Szabo. He just feels like some regular mob boss you’d find in every crime film ever. He doesn’t feel distinct as a Gotham crime boss.
However it’s the body horror that is the true constant. The inspirations are so clear with films from Cronenberg such as The Fly. It makes you squeamish, it makes you look away in disgust but at the same time you admire all the practical and special effects and the effort that went into them. And when the film finally commits to the character of clayface and what he can do, it finds its momentum.
Unfortunately it only finds this momentum in the third act where it finally embraces the fantastical nature of the character which makes the first two acts worth it. Everyone talks about the club scene and so will I. I thought it was blocked quite well. Where all the actors are placed so that Hagen can slip between them to transform looked so slick.
The way he kills Szabo’s random goons can vary from either straight-up brutalising or creatively using his newfound powers.
However one thing I didn’t like in the third act was again the characterisation of Hagen in this world. We were promised that he wouldn’t be this anti-villain and instead an ordinary villain. And I just did not feel that. All his actions are pretty much justified – or at least you can be like ‘yeah I understand why he did that.’ And then randomly at the end they decide to make Hagen do something that’s quite villainy. It kind of comes out of nowhere and to me felt like they only did it to be like ‘look he’s a full-fledged villain now.’
The production design also caught my attention but not in the way I wanted it to. Given all the rumours and speculation about a merger with Matt Reeves’ Batman it felt like they wanted to try and replicate the feeling of his world in case that happened, and it unfortunately did not work. Whether or not that was the intention (probably not) whenever I saw a wide shot of a cityscape I just couldn’t get it out of my head that it was trying to replicate that Gotham. It’s not as well lit and I didn’t get that ‘Gotham’ vibe from the city. GCPD looked really basic and minimalist and it didn’t look criminal infested. They add sirens in the background and have trains covered in graffiti but that’s about all they do to try and sell you on this world.
Saying it’s not as well lit is an unfair comparison. The film actually looks really good. The blocking, as mentioned above, is quite good. The lighting is still good, currently the best-looking film of the DCU by a country mile.
In a disjointed review, Clayface is a very okay film that after struggling to flesh out its characters and world, finally finds its footing and embraces who these characters are.