Big-screen bonanza from blockbuster to comedy

For moviegoers, Boxing Day is a time of decision; in the customary post-Christmas release frenzy, they are spoiled for choice.

John C. Reilly as Watson, Pam Ferris as Queen Victoria and Will Ferrell as Sherlock Holmes in Holmes & Watson.

For moviegoers, Boxing Day is a time of decision; in the customary post-Christmas release frenzy, they are spoiled for choice.

This year’s blockbuster slot is taken by a less familiar comic book character: Jason Momoa’s Aquaman, who makes quite a splash in a movie of his own as a reluctant super­hero with very little interest in the legacy inherited from his mother (Nicole Kidman), queen of the underwater nation of Atlantis.

Aquaman, directed by James Wan, makes the most of Momoa’s imposing presence and sets up a fin­ale that pulls out all the stops.

There’s a different kind of power play going on in Vice, written and directed by Adam McKay (The Big Short), a dramatic satirical depiction of Dick Cheney’s ascent to the vice-presidency and all this may signify about modern America. Cheney is played by an unrecognisable Christian Bale.

Yorgos Lanthimos’s absurd, pungent and poignant drama The Favourite is set in the English court in the early 18th century. The three actors at its centre — Olivia Colman as Queen Anne, and Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone as the women vying for her affection and attention — have a ball in a film that gleefully takes liberties with history, monarchy and propriety.

In writer-director Pawel Pawlikowski’s Cold War, a Polish couple — an aspiring singer and an accomplished pianist — fall in love yet cannot stay together. Crisscrossing Cold War Europe, East and West, they are separated, reunited, torn apart and reconciled in a series of elegant encounters.

For younger viewers, the Disney animation Ralph Breaks the Internet sends the genial video-game character of 2012’s Wreck-it Ralph on an internet search for an arcade game part. The film exuberantly explores internet phenomena and pop-culture artefacts, with a ­Disney princess slumber-party sequence for the ages.

In The Wild Pear Tree, Turkish master Nuri Bilge Ceylan tells the story of a young writer who returns to the village where he grew up. As he chafes against dis­appointments, particularly in relation to his father, he becomes part of a complex narrative of expectation, regret and resignation.

On the documentary side, in Kusama: Infinity filmmaker Heather Lenz creates a vivid portrait of artist Yayoi Kusama, still working at the age of 89. Lenz shows that her art has changed over the years but it has always been at the centre of her life.

Then there’s Holmes and Watson, a comic take on Arthur Conan Doyle’s great detective. Will Ferrell is Sherlock Holmes and John C. Reilly is his faithful amanuensis, doing their best to thwart a plot to assassinate Queen Victoria.