‘THE APPRENTICE’: Is it just my imagination, or is “The Apprentice” a pretty interesting movie? Less than a month before a U.S. presidential election, you’d expect an 11th-hour Trump biopic (which premiered earlier this year at the Cannes Film Festival) to settle for cheap smears and a bunch of propaganda. “The Apprentice” works a little differently. It’s an actual, conflicted and sporadically insightful film, dramatizing what made Trump Trump at an especially impressionable period in his rise. Disappointingly, “The Apprentice” settles too often for broader, less illuminating touches, along with, yes, some snark. The performers save the movie from itself. As Trump, Sebastian Stan captures just enough of the familiar externals — the pursing of the lips, the frequent check-in with the nearest reflective surface to see how his hair’s doing — without doing an impersonation. 2:00. 2 1/2 stars. — Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune

‘MEGALOPOLIS’: Francis Ford Coppola’s new film is a philosophical argument for the artist’s place in society disguised as a movie that does not care for delivering what you want, or think you need. Adam Driver plays visionary architect and physics- defying inventor Cesar Catilina. His discovery of the wonder metal megalon holds the key to an urban renewal project for the great, battered city of New Rome. Presumably for the health insurance, Catilina is on the city payroll as head of the Design Authority under the skeptical eye of Mayor Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), a pawn in the hands of the plutocrats who got him elected. Jon Voight, looking alternately lost and eagle-eyed, is the richest pluto in town. Shia LaBeouf slithers hither and yon as an incestuous schemer with take-back-our-country rabble- rousing skills and ambitions. Coppola is plainly disinterested in story momentum or conventions, and since the film itself periodically quotes whole chunks of Catullus and William Shakespeare, it’s fair to say “Megalopolis” is a spiritual cousin to Shakespeare’s nutty, half-mad, late-period romances. 2:18. 2 1/2 stars. — Michael Phillips

‘NEVER LET GO’: The new Alexandre Aja film “Never Let Go” is billed as a psychological thriller and sports a trailer that looks like a ghost story. Halle Berry stars as a troubled mother surviving what seems to be a postapocalyptic existence deep in the woods with her two young sons. She battles off mysterious creatures, ensuring their safety by remaining tethered to their crumbling wooden cabin with ropes, in a ritual that’s either superstitious or supernatural. But this isn’t your run-of-the-mill haunting flick. “Never Let Go” reveals itself to be one of the most shockingly bleak American genre films in recent memory. It’s bold to see an American film be this unapologetically dark with regard to children and animals, and it feels more like a dreary and stark Eastern European film than a spooky-season thriller. While that may work for some, for other audiences, it will be a surprise, and not in a good way. 1:41. 2 stars. — Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service

‘PIECE BY PIECE’: A documentary about Pharrell Williams rendered entirely as a Lego movie? It’s understandable to be a bit skeptical of this gimmick, but in “Piece by Piece,” directed by Oscar-winning documentarian Morgan Neville, it’s a gimmick that works. In an introductory bit of conversation about the film between the subject and director, it’s explained how the Lego style affords the somewhat mysterious and inscrutable Williams a shield that allows him to let his guard down while sharing his personal story. It also comes to make thematic sense in the larger narrative about how he understands his life and the context in which he exists. Of course, the Lego style is also just fun, a spin on the usual biographical documentary which tells the story of a creative genius through talking head interviews and archival footage. Everything here is Lego: the interviews, the music videos, the home movies, the scenes of Williams returning to his hometown of Virginia Beach to perform a homecoming concert. The style is funny and cute, and while it offers him a modicum of privacy, it also makes you want to revisit the real thing when the film is over. 1:33. 3 stars. — Katie Walsh

‘SATURDAY NIGHT’: There’s an existential question that runs throughout “Saturday Night,” Jason Reitman’s love letter to the iconic “Saturday Night Live,” and its chaotic entry into the world on Oct. 11, 1975. People keep asking the show’s creator and producer, Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle) what, exactly, the show is? It’s a question he’s not able to answer until nearly the end of the movie, at about 11:15 p.m. The film, which starts at 10 p.m., and takes place over the course of the 90 minutes leading up to the first live show, utilizes an ominous ticking clock to countdown the minutes until showtime. Over the course of those 90 minutes (which the film, with a run time of 1 hour and 49 minutes, fudges a bit) whatever can go wrong already has, will, or is in the process of going wrong, swirling around the preternaturally calm eye of the storm, Lorne. Though “Saturday Night,” the film, feels ephemeral and somewhat fleeting, it represents something that has endured, and continues to, through the sheer force of will that is Lorne Michaels. 1:49. 2 1/2 stars. — Katie Walsh

‘THE SUBSTANCE’: Our world does not often offer a safe space for female rage. But French filmmaker Coralie Fargeat has carved out a place to explore that emotion in her work. She shapes that anger into a spear to skewer society’s sexism, revealing the restrictive nature of toxic patriarchy, and allows her female protagonists to violently break free from those expectations. Demi Moore stars as actor Elisabeth Sparkle, a once-lauded ingenue who now hosts a popular TV fitness show. On her 50th birthday, she’s abruptly cut loose by studio executive, Harvey (Dennis Quaid). After an encounter with a strange nurse, Elisabeth finds out about a radical and mysterious beauty/biohacking company called the Substance that promises a better, more beautiful version of herself. She shoots herself up with “activator” in her bathroom and out crawls Sue (Margaret Qualley), young, supple and smooth. Sue marches right back to that office and auditions to be “the new Elisabeth Sparkle.” In this doppelganger story, Fargeat knows that two things can coexist at the same time, and as desperately sad as “The Substance” often is, it is also a darkly hilarious satire laced with outrageous camp. 2:20. 4 stars. — Katie Walsh

‘WHITE BIRD: A WONDER STORY’: It has been seven years since “Wonder” came out, and the long-awaited sequel, “White Bird: A Wonder Story” — which has been plagued by delays both pandemic- and labor strike-related — is finally hitting theaters. Directed by Marc Forster and written by Mark Bomback, “White Bird” is very loosely connected to the original film, but it takes a more global, historical approach to the same message about the importance of small but high-stakes gestures of kindness. As “a Wonder Story,” and as a Holocaust story, the messaging of “White Bird” is unsurprising though important: that kindness and empathy matters, especially in action, and that often, caring for others can mean putting one’s own self in danger, but we should do it anyway — in the grand tapestry of human existence, we are all connected. It may be a message we’ve heard time and time again, but it’s one that bears repeating, over and over. 2:00. 2 1/2 stars. — Katie Walsh

RATINGS: The movies listed are rated according to the following key: 4 stars, excellent; 3 stars, good; 2 stars, fair; 1 star, poor.