Just a little sharper and smarter in every department than it needs to be, James Watkins' film may be the third in the supposed DC Universe, but it plays as an enjoyable, unpretentious one-off.
By Guy Lodge
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Film Critic
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©Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection We are now three movies into the so-called DC Universe — branding that so far doesn’t appear to have cut through to any but the most devoted of nerds. Last year’s “Superman” reboot was respectable enough, this summer’s “Supergirl” a bit less so, but the prospect of a larger story world connecting them hardly sets the pulse racing. A comparatively obscure comic-book adaptation, “Clayface” is considerably more interesting all round, in large part because it doesn’t yet feel bound to any superhero property. Tonally and stylistically, this nasty, gnarly body-horror movie is its own ugly animal; perhaps the characters and conflicts introduced here would pall if given the franchise treatment, but in the context of a single, genre-melding romp, they’re fresh and ickily enjoyable.
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