Short reviews of what’s in theaters

New releases

★★ A Coffee in Berlin A coming-of-age-film that never overcomes its own adolescence, “Coffee” follows the misadventures of Niko, a slacker whose exasperated, overbearing father cuts his allowance, leaving his son poorer but not wiser. Though sometimes he seems on the edge of insight, Niko earns sympathy only because the other characters are so unpleasant. In German, with subtitles. (88 min., unrated)
(Peter Keough)

★★★ Dawn of the Planet of the Apes Director Matt Reeves and his army of technicians have created a vast, believable day-after-tomorrow landscape in which the remnants of humanity fight a pitched battle against their ascendant ape cousins. Visually, the movie is big, bold, often awe-inspiring. Narratively, it’s predictable boilerplate. You’ll root for the apes, especially Andy Serkis’s majestic Caesar. (130 min., PG-13) (Ty Burr)

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★★★ Venus in Fur Roman Polanski takes David Ives’s caustically brilliant Broadway play — about a theater director (Mathieu Amalric) and an actress (Emmanuelle Seigner) struggling over an adaptation of a legendary S&M novel — and romanticizes it until it reflects his career-long obsession with men, women, and power games. Both actors are excellent. In French, with subtitles. (96 min., unrated) (Ty Burr)

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