New releases

"Bigger, Stronger, Faster" A very entertaining documentary about what steroids mean to America, seen through the fretful eyes of director Chris Bell and his brothers, bodybuilders all. The film hops over the wall of media outrage and wonders why Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire are accused of cheating when our entire culture rewards winning at all costs. As surreally entertaining as a Michael Moore film and less pushy too. (107 min., R) (Ty Burr)

"The Foot Fist Way" A low-budget comedy about a loser tae kwon do instructor (the remarkable Danny McBride, who co-wrote the script) that sustains a mood of bracing strip-mall satire for about 30 minutes before it begins repeating itself. The filmmakers can't decide whether they're making a frat-boy comedy or a work of acerbic indie realism. Some good, vulgar horselaughs, though. (87 min., R) (Ty Burr)

"Kung Fu Panda" The star of the new computer-generated family film isn't Jack Black but the design-and-render gurus at DreamWorks Animation. Black provides the voice of a goofball panda in medieval China, desperate to prove himself to a Yoda-like master (Dustin Hoffman). A lushly beautiful, even soulful, visual experience has been yoked to a story line that wouldn't fool a three-year-old. Angelina Jolie, Ian McShane, and Seth Rogen provide additional voices. (91 min., PG) (Ty Burr)

"The Mother of Tears" The new bloodbath from the Italian horror maestro Dario Argento traverses the same trashy terrain as the average horror movie. But Argento sets the genre's standard then surpasses it. This tale, about an archeologist besieged by demons that want to destroy Rome, is not Dario at his best. But his enthusiasm for shlock is contagious and gonzo. For this occasion he becomes the horror director who'd rather crack us (and himself) up than freak anybody out. (97 min., unrated) (Wesley Morris)

"The Singing Revolution" Although entertaining and well-crafted, this documentary about the nonviolent Estonian revolution against the Soviet Union in 1991 is so one-sided that it seems like propaganda, an impression that is not dispelled by learning it was partially funded by the Estonian Ministry of Culture. Although the film claims that the Estonian tradition of mass singing created the revolution, Mikhail Gorbachev's policy of Glasnost seems to have played a larger role. (94 min., unrated) (Michael Hardy)

"Stuck" A Providence nurse (Mena Suvari) - high on Ecstasy, her hair in cornrows, checking her cellphone - hits a homeless guy (Stephen Rea) one night. The homeless guy remains lodged in her windshield, parked in her garage, while she has sex with her boyfriend and shows up for work at an elder care facility, refusing to call the police or apply her medical skills. You're probably thinking, "This sounds outrageous!" Yes, but not nearly enough. (86 min., R) (Wesley Morris)

"Up the Yangtze" A masterful and haunting documentary that shows the old China drowning helplessly under the weight of the new. Canadian filmmaker Yung Chang takes us to the site of the Three Gorges Dam, the largest hydro-electric project in history, and introduces us to locals trying to adapt to a tourist economy that runs "Farewell Cruises" up the vanishing river. Gorgeously filmed, the movie's impassioned reportage masquerading as poetry. (93 min., unrated) (Ty Burr)

"You Don't Mess With the Zohan" If this isn't the bravest movie ever made about current Arab-Israeli relations, it's at least the bravest movie ever made about current Arab-Israeli relations featuring a former Mossad agent who shags Lainie Kazan. Adam Sandler is said agent, who comes to America to style hair and winds up fighting old enemies. The film is a mess but a funny, ethnically roiled one that shows Sandler in an encouraging new mode: political farceur. (113 min., PG-13) (Wesley Morris)

"Constantine's Sword" A dense yet fiercely eloquent examination of how the Christian message of peace became perverted into an instrument of war, adapted by author (and Globe columnist) James Carroll and director Oren Jacoby from Carroll's 2001 book. With a cool sense of outrage, the film prompts us to see the outlines of state-sponsored religion in our history and our cur rent affairs. In English, Italian, and German, with subtitles. (96 min., unrated) (Ty Burr)

"The Fall" What you'd get if you told a gifted graphic illustrator the plot of "The Princess Bride" and sent him off to come up with his own version. Years in the making, shot with camera throttles wide open in 18 countries, this fairy-tale-within-a-tale is a personal labor of love for filmmaker Tarsem Singh and a work of gorgeous, lunatic ambition. As a movie, though, it's kind of a mess. (117 min., R) (Ty Burr)

"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" A rollicking if overly familiar class reunion that stands as the second-best entry in the venerable series. The year is 1957, the villains are now Russian Communists, and star Harrison Ford wears the fedora with believably weathered panache. All that's lacking is a genuine sense of surprise, possibly on purpose. With Shia LeBoeuf, Karen Allen, and Cate Blanchett as a drop-dead comrade. (123 min., PG-13) (Ty Burr)

"The Strangers" Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman play James and Kristen, a couple tormented by three masked killers - a young man and two young women - in the dead of night, in the middle of nowhere. The filmmaking is suspenseless and unclean. But neither Tyler nor Speedman seems to mind being turned into a gorgeous wooden knife block. (80 min., R) (Wesley Morris)

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