Who asked for “Clayface”? Don’t ask James Gunn, who (active as he is online) recently justified the film’s existence to a skeptical Threads user by unleashing a rambling screed that invoked “Mad Max: Fury Road” (2015), “Pan’s Labyrinth” (2006), “The Matrix” (1999), and “Casablanca” (1942).
“Although it may seem like it, Hollywood isn’t a place where the only way to make a movie is the public voting on what IP they want to see that they’ve seen countless times before,” the DC Studios co-CEO Gunn-splained. (Yes, Clayface is himself a hunk of intellectual property. Yes, he’s been utilized more sparingly than the more famous members of Batman’s Rogues Gallery.)
According to Gunn, “Clayface” wasn’t initially in the cards for the “Gods and Monsters” chapter of his DC universe—until Mike Flanagan presented him with a screenplay that he couldn’t turn down. With Flanagan busy applying his narrative powers to the “Carrie” streaming series, Hossein Amini (“Drive”) was recruited for a rewrite and James Watkins (“Speak No Evil”) was drafted to direct.
The first DCU film set in Gotham City, “Clayface” infuses the Dark Knight’s hometown with bleak retro flair: graffiti-heavy subway cars, Polaroids, and flaming power plant smokestacks in the Narrows. Less familiar, however, is Dr. Caitlin Corr (Naomi Ackie, bringing big “Mickey 17” energy), who applies an experimental nano-particle healing treatment to disfigured actor Matt Hagen (Tom Rhys Harries).
(Caitlin is said to have once been part of a larger scientific team that kicked her out. Though a lot of plot threads are left hanging, this one feels the most ripe for further exploration.)
Caitlin and Matt’s relationship qualifies as forbidden love on multiple levels. For a doctor, her treatment is more intimate than it should be—especially since she’s engaged to GCPD homicide detective John Borrelli (Max Minghella). It’s a tangled love triangle, complete with John investigating the deaths of people connected to Matt and the mobsters who attacked his body and his reputation.
As Matt starts to master his Clayface powers and takes his fight to those who wronged him, the movie adopts an unexpectedly goofy tone. Rhys Harries may not commit to the camp as strongly as Tom Hardy in the “Venom” (2018-24) trilogy, but his charisma makes Matt a hybrid of the Thing and the Blob worth rooting for.
That being said, the ending of the film whiplashes back to the tragedy we’ve come to expect from Clayface’s origin. It’s then that we remember who co-wrote this screenplay: Flanagan, who possesses a gift for nuanced morality (see: the infernal family drama of “The Fall of the House of Usher” and his surprisingly sympathetic modernizations of Carrie White’s nemeses).
As of now, we have no idea what Gunn has in mind for the future of Gotham in the DCU (though he could be casting a new Batman soon). For now, he’s graced the Caped Crusader’s turf with a visceral standalone for a long Halloween weekend—one of the better DC adaptations that no one asked for.
