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“1917”

R, 1:58, drama

Designed as two long, unbroken shots, Sam Mendes’ film is astonishing — a feat of cinematography, production design and performance moving seamlessly as one piece. But the most incredible thing about “1917” is how often you forget about the trick of it all, absorbed in character and story rather than any “gimmick.” Two young lance corporals, Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman) and Schofield (George MacKay), are given the order to deliver a message by morning to a battalion of British soldiers who are walking into a trap. Chapman gives one of the most heartbreaking performances of the year, while MacKay’s physicality, both explosive and intimate, is astounding. — Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service

“Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker”

PG-13, 2:21, action-adventure

This final film does the job. It wraps up the trio of trilogies begun in 1977 in a confident, soothingly predictable way. Somehow, somewhere, a phantom version of Emperor Palpatine, ruler of the First Galactic Empire, is sending a signal that he’s back in business. The Resistance now must face an adversary known as the Final Order. Daisy Ridley anchors a busy yet simple narrative as Rey, the “last hope of the Jedi,” who remains in psychic deadlock with Supreme Leader and bad boy Kylo Ren (Adam Driver). Thanks to Ridley, primarily, director J.J. Abrams’ safetyfirst approach to rounding out this portion of Disney’s crucial income stream retains something like a human pulse. — Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune

“Like a Boss”

R, 1:23, comedy

Besties since middle school and housemates for years, Mia (Tiffany Haddish) and Mel (Rose Byrne) run a boutique that’s a half-amillion in debt when a lifeline appears with cosmetics conglomerate honcho and conniving shark Claire Luna (Salma Hayek). Somewhere between the screenwriters’ pitch and the film’s release, this movie sprang a leak and dribbled away all its comic possibilities. It’s frankly depressing to watch Haddish and her able co-stars bang their heads against a story calculated to celebrate sisterhood but playing into every possible stereotype. Mainly what “Like a Boss” sells is raunch, with a mechanical series of witless yeast infection jokes. — Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune

“Just Mercy”

PG-13, 2:16, drama Harvard-educated lawyer Bryan Stevenson (Michael B. Jordan) takes a case in Monroeville, Alabama: Walter McMillian (Jamie Foxx), an African-American business owner is sentenced to death for killing an 18-year-old white woman. Soon enough, Stevenson realizes how faulty and selective the evidence against McMillian really was. The activist gradually convinces the prisoner’s family, and then McMillian himself, that he has a shot at redemption. This film is solid docudrama filmmaking, if you don’t mind a first-rate story of systemic injustice undercut by second-rate dialogue. What’s missing is a sense of human complication within an inhuman judicial sphere. — Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune

“Little Women”

PG, 2:15, drama

The pacing and rhythm of this new screen version of Louisa May Alcott’s novel reveals writer-director Greta Gerwig’s full-gallop approach to the four March sisters (played by Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh and Eliza Scanlen), their mother (Laura Dern) and their intertwining private lives during and after the Civil War. The way Gerwig handles them, the March family’s stories are treated as a disarming comedy of manners under serious, cloudy skies. She doesn’t stop there: By the end of Gerwig’s “Little Women,” Alcott’s story and Jo March’s story dovetail into a third, hybrid tale of one woman’s freedom from want. — Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune