Clayface is an example of great marketing paired with a well-cut trailer package. The trailers had me intrigued about how they would tackle this kind of character, since his powers would be interesting to visualize on the big screen. Now that I’ve watched it, I can say it met my expectations and then some without missing a beat. I expected a lot of wacky moments where Matt would have to battle his changing body because of the experimentation, along with his mental stability and whether he could control his changes.

Matt Hagen is your typical self-centered “protagonist,” if you want to call him that. Everything that happened to him was self-inflicted. His best friend warned him that the woman he was dancing with at the club was attached to local mobster Markos Szabo, so when he gets tortured for being with her, I didn’t feel bad. Making Matt an actor helps sell how he controls his different transformations throughout the movie, and it lets him easily sneak in and out of difficult locations.

Dr. Caitlin Corr felt like someone who wanted to do good but ended up more like Dr. Frankenstein. Her strong personality gave the story a moral compass, and you can tell her intentions were good. With the proper restrictions, her nanobots could save a lot of people. She was smart and a strong character, and her chemistry with Matt felt natural, not forced at all. She was willing to help but drew a line when things got crazy after the multiple homicides.

The pacing felt crisp and sharp and left very little room for improvement. Anything I would change would really be nitpicks. I could see maybe 5–10 minutes being cut, and that would just mean trimming a few seconds from each scene. At a nice 108 minutes, the movie never dragged.

This is a rare case where I’m struggling to find something that was off or wasn’t paid off. As she mentions throughout the movie, the kill switch for the nanobots wouldn’t have worked anyway, since it was designed for a smaller batch. Once Matt injected himself with more than the regulated amount, they were both in uncharted waters. The tension was there the whole way through. He could become anyone, and that keeps you wondering who he’ll transform into next.

The ending is where everything comes together. Dr. Corr finally turns on Matt, using the taser to incapacitate him long enough to hit the nanobot kill switch. For a moment it looks like he’s dead, but just as she warned throughout the movie, the kill switch was never built for the amount he injected, and he survives. He disguises himself to get one last glimpse of her, then retreats into the sewer to fantasize about the romantic kiss he’ll never get. Then he finally transforms into his full comic book look, and the movie fades to black as he roars. It’s a dark, fitting finish that turns him into the villain Batman fans know. Clayface makes the most of its tight runtime and gives the audience exactly what it wants. The pacing never drags, and the club scene after he learns to control his powers was amazing, with Matt confusing the mobsters by smartly changing into different people in the room. I would highly recommend that anyone thinking about this movie go see it in theaters.