James Gunn's Genre-Bending New Superhero Movie Is a Total Disaster

Yet another major misstep for James Gunn’s DC Universe

You know those so-so superhero movies where the villain is kind of dull and two-dimensional, but you can get through it because you like the hero so much? Think of Iron Man 2 or Thor: The Dark World or something like that. Now imagine one of those movies without the beloved superhero, and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what it’s like watching DC’s terrible new Clayface movie, which tells an underwhelming story filled with uninteresting characters.

Directed by James Watkins and based on a story by Mike Flanagan, Clayface is about up-and-coming actor Matt Hagen (Tom Rhys Harries) whose handsome face and recent best actor nomination make him the talk of the town. Hagen had a rough childhood growing up in Gotham, but he’s overcome the odds and become a success. That all changes when he sleeps with the wife of a mob boss who retaliates by slicing up his pretty face.

Hagen undergoes a series of surgeries to save his life, but his reconstructed face is grotesque. Without his movie star looks, his career quickly collapses. Hagen’s agency drops him, his lawyer steals money from him, and he has to move back to his crappy apartment in Gotham. But he’s given a bit of hope when he finds out about an experimental new procedure developed by Dr. Caitlyn Corr (Naomi Ackie), which will restore his appearance with “nanocells.” At first, it works, but over time, the nanocells malfunction giving Hagen a monstrous, melting appearance — and the ability to shape-shift into anyone he chooses.

What's wrong with Clayface?

For the first 15 or 20 minutes of the movie, Clayface zips along at a breakneck pace, which feels almost apologetic in tone. It’s as if the filmmakers knew they had nothing interesting to say before Matt gets disfigured, so they just hurry it along until it gets to that point. The problem is, they should have been using that time to tell us who Matt is before this life-changing incident, but it goes so fast that it's hard to get a good picture of him.

With this story, I think the filmmakers had two options: either they needed a sympathetic Matt Hagen whose life is torn apart by the incident, or a guy who’s kind of a jerk who gets his comeuppance but is so engaging that we can’t look away, the kind of guy we root for because he’s so engaging or funny or whatever. The movie does neither of those things and Matt basically just comes off as a terribly dull, shallow Hollywood phony, making Clayface a revenge story for a character that you can't even root for.

There’s also nobody else in the movie that’s really engaging, either. Aside from Matt, the biggest disappointment is David Dencik as mob boss Markos Szabo, the guy who slices up Matt and is the object of Matt’s revenge plot. Perhaps we’ve been spoiled in recent decades with guys like Tom Wilkinson (Batman Begins), John Turturro (The Batman), and Clancy Brown (Penguin) playing Gotham’s crime bosses, but Dencik feels small in the role, like he can't quite fill the suit of a believable tough guy.

Naomi Ackie is probably doing the best job in the movie, playing the scientist who is trying to help Matt. There’s also a bit of a half-baked love story — or at least attraction — between her and Matt, but I never found myself wanting them to be together. Instead, you’re kind of rooting for her to stay with Max Minghella’s character, the rare example of an honest Gotham cop who, at times, seems like we’re supposed to care about, but he’s never given enough to do for us to ever get there.

Why does this movie even exist?

The one redeeming thing about the movie, I think, is that it sold itself as a body horror film and it does somewhat deliver on that front. To the movie’s credit, there is some good, cringey, gross, hard-to-watch body horror stuff in there, but it never feels like a horror movie. There’s nothing that actually makes you feel scared. It’s just a superhero movie without a superhero. Honestly, what they did with the character of Clayface may have worked just fine within a Batman movie, but on its own there’s just nothing there to sink your teeth into and I found myself outright bored for much of the film.

Heading into this movie, I couldn’t help but be perplexed as to why it even exists, and why they were making it now, before the Batman of James Gunn’s DC Universe has even been established yet. As with Supergirl, it just feels like it’s come too early in this still-developing universe. Say what you will about Marvel and its missteps, but they knew which characters to prioritize up front. Perhaps Marvel did it too well, because after Avengers: Endgame, it mostly felt like they were serving us leftovers. But for some reason, Gunn’s DC Universe seems to be serving its leftovers right up front, which is much, much worse.