“I see dead people,” Adrien Brody all but exclaims in Backtrack, a movie that tries to make a choo-choo out of “The Sixth Sense” but immediately goes off the rails.

The film tries to be clever by going meta: Once again, it’s rooted in Mr. Glass’ conviction that superheroes are real, and it repeatedly name-checks comic-book tropes that are reflected, languidly, in the movie’s own plot. But in the end, all it really reveals is a onetime visionary’s glass now half — no, let’s go with mostly — empty.

A reasonably entertaining cartoon feature.

Its faults -- banal dialogue, ludicrous and uninspired plotting, dull but vicious fight scenes -- make you realize just how much the summer action movie has declined in the last few years.

Has just enough fairy dust to charm its target audience.

It's not a bad premise for a movie, but writer-director Omar Naim, a 26-year-old Lebanese native making his feature debut, proves equally inept at handling plotting, actors and pacing.

An earnest, well-meaning film.

The highlight is a meta touch: A funny on-screen résumé is posted each time we meet a new character.

The movie was largely improvised, which lends itself more to scenes than a feature-length film.

Whenever there’s a lull here, a big laugh soon comes along with the force of a boa constrictor that conceals the flaws.

The CGI, by the way, looks awfully cheap in a market that includes boundary breakers such as Pixar and DreamWorks. Hanna-Barbera was never the animation powerhouse that Disney and Warner Bros. were back in the day, but it overcompensated with personality. Warner Animation Group’s Scoob! has got none of that.

A female revenge movie. But you could just as easily characterize it as fairly well-executed exploitation.

The gags run thin after half an hour or so.

Hugh Jackman appears briefly as Sophia's Aussie boyfriend, and gets to perform a lively song-and-dance number. But for some strange reason, his name isn't in the credits.

It's all a gorgeous error, a bonfire of overreach.

This poorly acted, directed and written (but slick-looking) vanity project was produced by Andrew Lauren (Ralph's son also ineptly plays G's major-domo) and shot at least four years ago.

A silly, boring supernatural thriller that squanders a potentially interesting premise and the rapper Snoop Dogg in his ostensible starring debut.

So tedious it's almost worth watching to see just how bad acting, inadequate direction and most important, a criminally crass and unimaginative screenplay can make so little out of a proven idea.

Beyond the cliched diaper-changing scenes and the oh-so-predictable romantic complications, the film inadvertently insults its presumed target audience.

Recycles the teen romantic comedies of the last few years...and it's easily the worst of the lot.

Mostly it fails to score. Maybe that's why no one has attempted summer-camp comedy since the third "Meatballs" sequel a decade ago.

That The Big Bounce works at all is a testament to Wilson, an Oscar-nominated screenwriter ("The Royal Tenenbaums") who probably could have come up with something better in his sleep.

A vast improvement over Schenkman's previous effort, "The Pompatus of Love."

Action flick machismo suffers an identity crisis in Stuber.

The demands of formula eventually stifle anything that even looks like inspiration or honesty.

The film strains credulity as it hurtles toward its conclusion.

You know you’re in for a long haul when Kate Winslet’s clipboard-wielding Jeanine, leader of the Erudite faction, comes off less like a Hillary Clinton than a weary Applebee’s supervisor at the end of a 14-hour shift in this plodding sequel to “Divergent.”

It sounds like it was written by the star pupils at the Cameron Academy of Screenwriting.

It’s a lot better than the 1997 version, if equally as stupid.

A well worn trope that’s tough to elevate beyond eye-roll level.

The apolitical and well-meaning Home of the Brave is predictable and maudlin.

I haven't seen a timelier or more important film this year, and the film's passion for school choice could hardly be more warranted. Along with documentaries such as "The Lottery" and "Waiting for 'Superman,' " the film comes with a background sound of the ice of inertia cracking.

The seventh movie in the franchise, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, is a predictable return to rock-em-sock-em stupidity with nothing to add except Michelle Yeoh as a talking aluminum falcon.

Wildly uneven romantic drama.

Mind-numbing, would-be comic-book franchise, which often seems as blind as its hero -- not to mention deaf and dumb.

Lethargic direction, bland visuals, credulity-straining plotting and tin-eared dialogue turn even pros like Rebecca Hall, Paul Bettany and Morgan Freeman into sleepwalking bores.

There are many new Japanese movies that deserve a stateside release. Why this hapless mess beat them out is a question that deserves an answer.

But improbable situations, heavy reliance on coincidence and an improbable climax nearly tip the film into TV-movie territory.

A long way from his TV portrayal of John Adams, Giamatti seems to be having an especially good time as a splenetic King John, who would not be out of place in a Monty Python movie.

It seems more likely that a dumb movie will lead only to a time-wasting surge in applications from dummies. Maybe The Internship was secretly funded by Bing.

This low-caliber Gun Shy has singularly ugly cinematography by Tom Richmond that at one point shows off Bullock's facial hair.

Hollywood isn’t just churning out crummy remakes of great films anymore — now it’s doing awful remakes of mediocre films. For evidence, see Overboard. Or, rather, don’t.

The Lost Kingdom isn’t well done, but it isn’t miserable either.

Proves that you don't need a big budget to make a dynamite film.

Promising new writer-director Mark Christopher is like "Dollhouse" director Todd Solondz's more cheerful little brother.

The film is never gripping, but at least it moves. Director Ron Howard does his best to spark excitement with cheesy horror-movie editing — brief shots of the damnation in store if the virus is unleashed — and there are a couple of twists to keep things lively. Nothing is what it seems, unless it seems ridiculous, in which case it’s exactly what it seems.

If you thought Marvel Studios was committed to getting back on track by making fewer movies of higher quality, wait till you see Captain America: Brave New World...The situation over there is so dire, they’ve brought back a plotline from “Eternals.” “Eternals”!

The funniest "SNL" movie since "Wayne's World."

At its most entertaining when the parrot does the talking.

Both Adam and the stakes are so low, it’s like watching 100 minutes of a slug trying to crawl over a twig.

A deeply pleasurable, old-fashioned blood-'n'-guts adventure film.

Charles Busch's spoof of beach-party movies and psychological thrillers, an off-Broadway hit 13 years ago, stubbornly refuses to entertain in this unrelentingly dull film version.

Evokes such deja vu, you'd swear you'd already fallen asleep on the damned thing in the middle of the night on HBO.

James' character is a charmless, boring lump and it's very hard to care if he gets the girl or not.

To call Jackass: The Movie the worst movie of the year is practically a compliment. This plotless, crudely videotaped collection of moronic stunts is a movie in the same sense that those hideous, velvet depictions of Elvis are paintings.

The "Jurassic Park" movie franchise does not evolve. Quite the opposite: It degenerates at great speed.

Bad Samaritan plays like an unambitious episode of “Black Mirror,” low on techno-savvy but enhanced by the always-compelling David Tennant and Robert Sheehan, an Irish actor best known for his role on the British series “Misfits.”

Blunt and Dornan’s chemistry eclipses anything the hunky actor ever managed with Dakota Johnson in “Fifty Shades of Grey.”

In reality, it’s a tiresome parade of gory and sexist cliches that are, frankly, insulting to a cast that includes Laurence Fishburne, Barry Pepper, Adam Goldberg, Leslie Bibb and Clifton Collins Jr.

Parker is watchable chiefly for Statham, who exudes effortless cool and excels in hand-to-hand combat, as well as demonstrating his skill at wielding some very unlikely weapons.

There's certainly a good movie to be made about Muslim punk musicians in the US, but this isn't it.

To be fair, Ferrell is almost always at least mildly funny, even when doing something as lame as skateboarding into a power line, but Wahlberg’s cowboy shtick just seems half-hearted.

If you can overlook Andie MacDowell's Mitteleuropa accent as a Jewish Holocaust survivor (I know: big if), the cinematic roman a clef Mighty Fine has some quiet charms.

It's hard to imagine how Shyer and script writer John Sweet could have brought this tale to the screen in a cruder, cornier or less interesting way.

The once-funny Robin Williams is still stuck in his excruciating touchy-feely mode.

A good edit would have allowed the film's worthy, obviously heartfelt, message to shine.

Boasts a stellar ensemble cast and some priceless one-liners -- but those pearls of acerbic wit have been strung together on a cheap piece of thread which almost inevitably breaks in the third act.

Twi-hards, Beliebers and Whovians have nothing on the cult of Jane Austen, whose beribboned ranks are ripe for satire. Unfortunately, this scattershot comedy only occasionally hits the mark.

Concert sequences are engaging, though I was disappointed not to see any animated flourishes.

It may be a second-rate “Lord of the Rings,” but at least it doesn’t overstay its welcome.

By far the best scenes are shared by Sneider and his struggling but devoted mother, played by the seldom-seen Amanda Plummer.

Actors tell us that dying is easy, comedy is hard. But comedies about dying are hardest of all.

There is only one joke here, milked endlessly.

Remember when Robert De Niro was an interesting actor? These days his talent, like his character in The Family, is in the witness protection program, never to be seen again.

Disliking this film feels churlish, like rooting for the Yankees to crush the Little League champs. But amiability, and the natural affinity most people have for David over Goliath, can't substitute for skill and imagination.

Not like a lump of coal in your stocking. Coal is useful; you can burn it. This movie is more like a lump of something Blitzen left behind after eating a lot of Mexican food.

This film should be reliably filling as pizza for dinner. But the deliveryman is an hour late and has dropped the box.

John Travolta's From Paris With Love assassin/ superagent Charlie Wax is the master of whatever the opposite of wisecracking is. Fooljoshing? Lametalking? Flatlining?

A tightly drawn, propulsive thriller with some pleasingly unexpected kinks in the tale and a couple of believable performances from Charlize Theron and Kevin Bacon in the leads.

Though it sometimes feels as if it's four hours long, Underworld has going for it an intriguing fantasy premise, an eventful plot and a look that is diverting, if finally a bit monotonous.

Director-writer Roger Stigliano used a tiny budget to fashion an endearing screwball comedy that brings to mind Jonathan Demme's "Something Wild" (1986).

A sloppy vanity project, this rambling and toothless Hollywood black comedy stars veteran filmmaker Henry Jaglom's girlfriend, Tanna Frederick.

Tiresome cavalcade of bickering — which feels like it lasts even longer than your typical Thanksgiving dinner.

Director Michael Bay, Hollywood's answer to the Antichrist, isn't primarily interested in your soul, though his movie does a pretty effective job of sucking that away (and sucking, in general).

There's little reason to see the claustrophobic Chronicling a Crisis unless you have a fascination with the Kolleks. Watching the vanity project is like being forced to sit through a friend's boring home movies.

Colin Firth plays a real-life investigator whom the script renders as noble as Atticus Finch. Reese Witherspoon does haunting work as a victim’s mom. But the stately pace and the faultless art direction add to the impression that truth was not only stranger, but more dramatic.

The film's flaws probably won't bother less jaded kids one whit.

This bore fest is nearly two hours of sizzle-less romance and thudding dialogue, centered around the sort of obnoxious free spirit who’d start up an unwanted conversation with you at a bar

The hippie heroine of this wacky Aussie comedy cheerfully theorizes that Australia was actually originally settled not by convicts but by mental patients — which may possibly explain the antics of Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman, among others.

It'll mainly appeal to film-biz insiders.

But even that talent (Freeman) isn't enough to distract you from the general predictability of Spider or the absurdity of its elaborate last-minute plot twists.

Seems to go on for several days and nights, though in fact it lasts just 105 minutes. I checked my watch. A lot.

I didn't know whether to be more offended as a moviegoer or as an American, but I do know I'd rather gargle nitroglycerine than watch this again, though given that the film looks like it were buried under a log cabin for a century, I barely saw it the first time.

The film mangles its twist and fails to deliver an interesting coup de grace or a sharp line of dialogue.

A warning: One scene in the middle is almost outrageously cruel and graphic. If you're the type of person who has to be reminded, "It's only a movie," stay away. This is the most depraved and dreadful piece of screen horror since last year's "Funny Games."

The first conservative documentary to join the bumper crop of liberal political films riding Michael Moore's coattails into theaters.

Next, which makes "National Treasure" look like a model of narrative logic, is almost beyond criticism.

A chainsaw-cut above recent entries in the genre: a pure, unapologetic, unironic homage to the likes of "Friday the 13th" that respectfully salutes all the old shtick.