HEART AND SOULS

In HEART AND SOULS, given a second chance to resolve their lives on earth, four departed souls are attached to Thomas (Robert Downey Jr.) and use him for their last go at life. After becoming Thomas’ “imaginary friends” and watching him grow up, they are told about twenty-seven years later that they were to use Thomas to fulfill their wishes. Each character is in a rush to “set things right” in his past life before his soul is taken for the beginning of a new one. Although this is where the laughs begin, as Downey comically performs each character’s personality, the New Age undertones are blatantly apparent. This philosophy of what you don’t do right in this life, you can do right in the next life, is emphasized as each character convinces Thomas to let him use his body in order for him to “set it right” for his next life. Thus, the movie fails to understand that “man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment” (Hebrews 9:27).

HEART AND SOULS does have a few comical moments but by incorporating this New Age variation on the theme of reincarnation, it fails to look at the bigger picture of eternal life with God in heaven. Furthermore, the film is an abomination to God who warns us in Deuteronomy 18:10-12: “Let no one be found among you who…is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the LORD….”