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A potently acted, buoyantly funny film that trades on emotion without making you gag on it.

Downey’s deftness is so miraculous, in fact, that it’s a shame Heart and Souls never really lets him cut loose.

The results are mildly comical and occasionally poignant. HEART AND SOULS was Downey's first film after his Oscar-nominated performance in CHAPLIN, but he refrains, thankfully, from pulling a star turn. Instead, HEART AND SOULS remains largely an ensemble effort, with skilled performances by all five of the lead actors.

And even if, at times, it seems terribly episodic as it plunges into each character's separate story and then back and forth between drama and comedy, the performances are constantly fun and fresh.

Unashamedly sentimental, but all the better for it.

It wins a few, loses a few. It makes us laugh, gets mileage out of the Four Seasons’ “Walk Like a Man.” In the end, the actors save it, especially two of the actors: star Robert Downey Jr., who may have moved into the Robin Williams-Steve Martin-Whoopi Goldberg category, and supporting actor David Paymer, who never hits a false note.

There's enough whimsy and Capracorn here to choke a horse, and things get even more complicated when the four dead people enter the body of Downey in turn—to help him help them. Fortunately the talents of the actors—especially Downey and Woodard—sometimes make this effective (i.e., funny or moving) in spite of all the goo.

Director Ron Underwood, who came up with a happy marriage of schmaltz and shtick in "City Slickers," can't quite disguise the mechanical superficiality of the story.

When the film announces, halfway through, that it will be devoting the rest of its running time to tying up these loose ends, the audience may as well give up the ghost.

For all its attempts to weave a spell on the audience, Hearts and Souls displays an incredible lack of subtlety. Nevertheless, if you are prone to sigh rapturously at the thought of a happy ending, this may be the movie for you. It doesn't just have one of these, but five, each more cloying than the one before -- a rare treat for those who don't mind sugar shock.