Just saw the movie tonight and was surprised to find there isn’t already a thread about it. An R-rated horror movie set in the same DC Cinematic Universe that gave us last year’s Superman flick? That’s an interesting concept, to say the least, and it’s probably the most unique comic book adaptation I’ve seen on the big screen.
I found it to be a pretty entertaining cross-genre movie - it’s being billed as horror, but it’s really more of a mob thriller with horror aspects to it. It’s definitely gory and suspenseful. The acting is good. The effects are top-notch. It owes a lot to the classic Batman: The Animated Series two-parter “Feat of Clay”, but it’s an original story rather than a rehash of that particular narrative. It does a great job building Matt Hagen up as an Aristotlean tragic hero, a good man for whom a momentary lapse of judgment leads him on a spiral into becoming a monster.
The movie ends on an ambiguous note. I’ve read the director’s explanation of it, but as I was watching it in the moment, I thought something entirely different was going on;
According to the director, the final scene where Caitlyn meets Matt in the sewer and embraces him before they merge into one body is a fantasy, where he used some of his spare flesh to make a duplicate of her so he could indulge his obsession and have a version of her that’s in love with him the way he is with her.
I interpreted it as being Matt accidentally absorbing and killing the real Caitlyn while they embraced, and his final scream being one of horror upon realizing what he’d done.
Anyone else seen it? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
The best thing about the film is the cast, which is generally excellent. I hope Tom Rhys Harries is able to use this as a launching point for other roles.
That said (and as I’ve said elsewhere), the plot is standard comic book fare: good guy is done wrong and suffers grievous injury, submits to experimental medical treatments, gains weird powers, and exacts revenge on all who wronged him while becoming morally dubious in the process. Also, there is an attractive woman involved. It’s basically Darkman with a bit more body horror.
I enjoyed it for what it was, but it was less original than I had hoped it would be.
As for your spoiler point: my immediate reaction was the same as yours but I quickly understood it to be the way the director intended. I can certainly see how either version could be construed.
I really enjoyed it. I liked that they fully embraced the body horror aspect of it and unlike so many other films, do not cut away or have the squicky bits in shadows. The body horror is right there, in your face, forcing you to see it all.
As to the ending, your interpretation makes no sense for Caitlyn. She knows Hagen is a multiple murderer and that he just killed her fiancé and basically tried to assault her and she finally was able to press the button to destroy the nanobots. She was terrified of him and knew it had to be done, even though she did have still have feelings for him. She is left not knowing if any face she sees on the street might actually be him, which is a terrifying idea. For her to then turn around and suddenly actually follow him into the sewer and be all “yay he’s alive! Let’s kiss and embrace!” would be complete anathema. “You killed the good man I loved! Let’s be together!”
Yeah, in retrospect it doesn’t, but in the moment that was what I thought was happening.
Or Deadpool but without the comedy aspect, I suppose.
Still, as a mob thriller with a body horror aspect, it does well enough that it doesn’t leave you asking “Why isn’t Batman doing something about this?”
Upon looking it up, it turns out the movie was filmed in Liverpool and pretty much the entire main cast is British, which explains why I wasn’t familiar with any of them.
I have to say that at no point in the movie did it occur to me that any of the actors were faking an American accent.