Clayface
Clayface
Starring Tom Rhys Harries, Naomi Ackie, David Dencik, Max Minghella
Directed by James Watkins
Matt Hagen (Tom Rhys Harries) is Hollywood's new It Boy, having just landed his first Oscar nomination and is on top of the world. He goes to a nightclub in Gotham with his best buddy Corey (Joshua James) and gets involved with Mia Torrez (Joana Ribeiro), who drugs him and tricks him into sleeping with her, despite Corey's warning that she's the girlfriend of mob boxx Markos Szabo (David Dencik). The next morning Szabo and his men find Hagan in bed with his girlfriend and proceed to extract his revenge by severely cutting his face to the point that numerous surgeries can't fix it. Things go from bad to worse for Matt when he's shunned by the Hollywood community, cut from his agent, discovers his manager is embezzling money, and he's become a social pariah. He finds hope in Dr. Caitlyn Corr (Naomi Ackie) who creates a treatment using nanotech that could repair wounds, and despite her misgivings in that it's not even at the human trial stage, she takes pity on Matt and performs the surgery.
While things seemingly go well and Matt's face is restored, he finds that when he thinks about what happened to him and those who wronged him, his face begins to melt. The only thing that brings it all together is his growing love for Corr, even though she's engaged to Gotham City police detective John Borrelli (Max Minghella). She warns Matt that the nanites could alter his physical appearance if he thinks too much about vengeance, but his thirst for revenge becomes too strong as he goes on the hunt for Szabo and everyone else who wronged him, leading him down a dark path of villainy.
What happens when everything you've worked so hard for in life is immediately stripped away? Do you move on with your life or seek vengeance against those who wronged you? Those are questions Matt Hagan has to answer in "Clayface," and as expected we know what path he goes which, although not the best for him, is great for the audience who came in expecting body horror violence and getting it in spades. Although at the cost of a deeply well thought-out story, in the end it doesn't really matter about Hagan's motivations or the complete heel-turn he takes in the final scenes that come out of left field, we get the body horror we were clamoring for, even if some of those scenes were delivered with less-than-perfect CGI (but still leaps and bounds better than "Thor: Love & Thunder").
Newcomer Tom Rhys Harries is a great choice to play Clayface because, much like the moniker he embodies, his face is a clay pot. We don't really know him from his other smaller roles in other films, so we can firmly believe he's Matt Hagan - newest Hollywood star. As good as Joaquin Phoenix did with Joker, the character and the actor were too separated in viewers' minds because we already knew who he was. Here, Harries gets to play the part with everything he's got, giving a flawed and growing villainous performance that is typical for an origin story of this type, but does it so much better than Sony ever did.
The premise is that he's attacked by a gang of mobsters who disfigure his face, but it goes much deeper than that without going into any spoilers. He has a hit list of his own, and once he finds out he can turn his body into anything, he sets out to get that revenge. It's a classic tale under a sheen of a superhero backdrop, with great gory effects and cringe-inducing body horror.
The movie doesn't really say much other than vengeance is, actually, a good thing - but it can also cost you your soul. Hagan spends the majority of the movie seeking this revenge and falling in love with Dr. Corr, even though their chemistry isn't really there. Again, people go see this movie for the horror, and this is where it delivers best.
The Score: A-
Comments
Post a Comment