Clayface attempts to help shoot some life into James Gunn‘s rebooted DC Universe after the box-office bomb that was the terrible Supergirl movie, earlier this year.
After unwisely doing the horizontal mambo with mafia-type Markos Szabo’s (David Dencik – Star City) other half, famous actor Matt Hagen (Tom Rhys Harries – Pierre) is set upon by the henchmen going to work on his face with a knife, resulting in him looking a lot less human.
Unsurprisingly, Szabo gets let off from the crime, Matt has to stay away from Oscars, loses acting jobs, goes broke and moves into a crappy flat. So, he basically becomes the Wojak meme.
However, all might not be lost as Dr Caitlyn Corr (Naomi Ackie – Shelter) has a lab where she’s working on a possible cure for his condition, involving a serum that can be injected and it soon restores your face, but… don’t overdose on the stuff! As you might expect, serum isn’t legal, but he has no real alternative.
Caitlyn’s also a potential love interest, even though she’s also dating Gotham City cop John Borrelli (Max Minghella – Horns), while Eddie Marsan (Prisoner) turns up to cash the cheque as Matt’s manager, Frank Fitzpatrick, who you can tell is as much on-the-level as his American accent is believable.
But after Matt shows up to a film premiere at Stockport Plaza – which is part of Gotham, of course, problems soon start occuring, requiring more of the ‘substance’, but don’t overdose… yeah? On the plus side, this also shows he can recover from injuries, even if he was to cut himself – so, basically, self-harming, as it all quickly heals.
While I’m not squeamish, there are numerous times when I did wince, starting with an airplane scene that was only partly shown in the trailer, as his eyelids start to close up and his answer is to fix this with the small scissors in his carry-on case. Hence, Clayface really earns its 18-certificate.
But like the Incredible Hulk, don’t try and get angry, since this causes another side effect I’ll avoid mentioning, which gives a humourous effect, even if it doesn’t make sense. Still, it’s a movie.
However, for a film running almost two hours, there’s no padding in this, it’s well-acted, well-paced and even the appearance of Rob Brydon as a talkshow host is actually amusing for the first time in ages, and NOT an irritant.
As for the titular character, while this is an origin film, he’s an enemy to Batman, yet given how long it’s taking to make The Batman Part II – currently scheduled for 2028, six years after the last one – and with Clayface hardly setting the box office alight, I can’t see him going up against the Bat any time soon, and certainly not long enough for this origin tale to still be relevant, or even for the new-ish DCU to still be going, as Robert Pattinson’s Batman movies aren’t technically part of Gunn’s universe.
As an aside, why on Earth is this in a crazy-wide 2.76:1 aspect ratio? Modern movie screens can’t go wider than 2.39:1, so this just results in additional black bars on any screen. Sinners did the same for the most part, and at home, the film just ends up looking unnecessarily tiny on TV.
NOTE: There are no mid- nor post-credit scenes. I expect Warner wasn’t sure how the DCU would go at this point, so didn’t include one, in case a sequel didn’t happen. Also, the final scene does also look like something that would be used as a post-credit scene, but has simply been moved earlier, so no-one misses it.
Personally, I would like to see a sequel to this, but Warner Bros clearly felt like it wouldn’t be a bit, because they cancelled the planned IMAX release, several months in advance.
Clayface is in cinemas now, and is available to pre-order on 4K Blu-ray, Blu-ray and DVD.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 108 minutes
Release date: October 23rd 2026
Studio: Warner Bros
Aspect Ratio: 2.76:1 (Anamorphic Panavision, ProRes RAW (8K), X-OCN ST (5.8K))
Cinema: Odeon Trafford Centre
Rating: 8.5/10
Director: James Watkins
Producers: Lynn Harris, Matt Reeves, James Gunn, Peter Safran
Writers: Mike Flanagan, Hossein Amini
Music: Volker Bertelmann
Cast:
Matt Hagen: Tom Rhys Harries
Dr Caitlyn Corr: Naomi Ackie
Markos Szabo: David Dencik
John Borrelli: Max Minghella
Frank Fitzpatrick: Eddie Marsan
Hildie Love: Nancy Carroll
Corey Bowery: Joshua James
Bones: Wil Coban
Mia Torrez: Joana Ribeiro
Jimmy Hagen: Aaron Paul (uncredited)
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.