Clayface - A Very Dark Origin Story of One of Batman's Villains

After playing in Indonesian cinemas for almost a week, my wife and I finally got the chance to see this movie yesterday. We were on holiday last week and just returned on Saturday night, so no time to see the film as we were busy with other things. Yesterday was also the Cinema Day in Indonesia with all cinema chains giving discount to their studios and lots of people seem to take advantage of it. Anyway, I'll just get on with the movie then.

Brief Story Line

Matt Hagen (Tom Rhys Harries - Kandahar, The Return etc) was a famous actor who managed to build successful career from bottom. After gotten into problem with mob boss Marko Szabo (David Dencik - The Chestnut Man TV series, The Snowman etc), Matt's face was disfigured and he lost everything, including all his wealth managed by his manager Frank Fitzpatrick (Eddie Marsan - Prisoner TV series, Wrath of Man etc).

With nothing to lose, Matt sought the help from scientist Dr. Caitlyn Corr (Naomi Ackie - Shelter, The Thursday Murder Club etc) who seemed to have ways to cure his face, though her method was not exactly approved and safe. Ultimately the procedure would have great repercussion to Matt's body and he finally decided to take revenge on the people who hurt him. Things gotten complicated when Caitlyn's fiancee, Gotham police detective John Borrelli (Max Minghella - Babylon, The Handmaid's Tale TV series etc) investigated the case involving Matt.

So what would happen to Matt? You could find out in this movie.

End of Brief Story Line

Clayface is a character whom I only knew from various news headline and other media as part of DC Universe, which obviously made me interested even though I was totally unaware and not familiar with him before this film was announced. With no expectation whatsoever, I saw this movie just like watching any other film. But what totally surprised me was the horrific images of the violence and graphic body harm. My wife did not even dare to open her eyes in one of those scenes, and both of us could feel the pain sensation in our mind whenever we saw them. No wonder it was categorized as body-horror.

Anyway the movie did not focus only on the body harms but it evolved into a revenge story which excite us and was done in satisfying manner. The evolution of Matt was something that my wife and I thought was well executed. There was a bit of moral dilemma and his transformation was great to see too. I also thought the special effects were pretty decent and the movie even have few effective jump scare scenes. For a film that only had duration of 108 minutes including closing credits, I thought it was sufficient to cover all the story. However, there was no mid or post end credit scene which quite confused me as it was said to be part of DCU's Chapter One: Gods and Monsters. 

The cast particularly Tom Rhys Harries did fantastic job to my opinion. He was convincing portraying his character. I think he was also praised by critics for his performance here. The movie itself did not have major Hollywood stars in it and I was not too familiar with most of the cast. Aside from the above names, there were appearances of Joshua James (Cyrano etc) as Matt's best friend Corey Bowery, Joana Ribeiro (Fatima, Infinite etc) as Szabo's girlfriend Mia Torrez and few others in minor roles, including cameo of Aaron Paul (Ash, Westworld TV series etc) though I did not realize it was him.

The film was directed by James Watkins (Speak No Evil, Bastille Day etc) and written by Hossein Amini (Our Kind of Traitor, Drive etc) together with Mike Flanagan (creator of Carrie TV series, writer of The Life of Chuck etc). In fact Flanagan was the one who originally had the idea of making this movie but due to scheduling conflict was not able to direct it. With plenty of experienced names, no wonder the movie was quite well received by critics and audience seemed to embrace it too, already getting a respectable Box Office performance exceeding the official budget (granted it was a modest one). Regardless though it was good news for DCU after its previous movie sadly did not do well, even if there did not seem to be direct link between this movie to the Universe.

Overall this was a movie that my wife and I enjoyed due to its revenge plot and satisfying vengeance. We also admired the character Matt Hagen aka Clayface (though the name was never specifically mention, but we kind of understand why such nickname). We thought he was a really cool villain of Batman and opened our eyes that he really does have a lot of interesting enemies. After seeing this, I think it would be intriguing if we could see Clayface face Batman in future, but since this is categorized as a standalone DC movie, I think it is less likely to happen. Nevertheless as an origin story of one of Batman's villain, this one is definitely a joy to watch. As long as you can bare seeing some of those terrifying body harm scenes, I think you would be entertained by this. But if you want to see a full action superhero (or antihero) movie, then likely you would not be too satisfied. The choice is yours.

Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars