Winona Ryder in "Lost Souls."

MOVIE INFORMATION

With 10 as a must-see, we give this film a: Stars: Winona Ryder, Ben Chaplin and John Hurt Director: Janusz Kaminski Rated: R, with violence and rough language Length: 102 minutes

ROCHESTERCRITIQUE

Having seen this film, how would you rate it? 10 5 9 4 8 3 7 2 6 1

By Bill Muller
Gannett News Service

(October 13, 2000) -- Satan has fought some tough customers in the movies before: Max von Sydow, Gregory Peck and even Arnold Schwarzenegger.

But in Lost Souls he faces a really powerful and determined opponent: Winona Ryder.

Yes, it's Ryder vs. Satan. No holds barred. Throw out the record books. The granddaddy of them all.

It's hard to say what possessed Ryder to make Lost Souls, but let's hope she cast that demon out for good. This movie would have to rise three grades to qualify as a silly knockoff.

At times, it's just a jumble of images with no real purpose. There are churches, priests, snarling dogs and Satanic symbols (including the old reliable 666), but not much story to hold it together. Besides that, it's just plain dull.

Perhaps fittingly, Ryder seems pretty bored. She walks through the movie in a daze, like a tourist lost in Grand Central Station. Occasionally, she stops to pretend she's frightened by the cheesy special effects, but that's about all we get.

She plays Maya, a young woman who was possessed by a demon, only to be saved by Father Lareaux (John Hurt). For some reason, Hurt's character spends most of the movie in a coma, perhaps because his good acting seems out of place.

The movie starts out with Maya meeting a mental patient obsessed with numbers. Using her superior satanic sleuthing skills, Maya deciphers the guy's third-grade "code" and quickly realizes that the world is coming to an end.

We should have known. After all, how else do you explain Survivor?

Anyway, turns out that the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse will ride into town on the narrow shoulders of one Peter Kelson (Ben Chaplin), a guy who writes books about serial killers and sits around on talk shows saying stuff like, "I like to think I'm the needle of the compass."

Hey, doesn't everybody?

Unbeknownst to Peter, he is the Antichrist -- which greatly affects his credit rating and his ability to finish dinner without being assaulted by a gun-wielding priest -- and Maya is absolutely sure of it. Why? Because he has the wrong blood type. What other evidence do you need?

He's going to turn evil on a certain day and, luckily, the Lord of Darkness is running Hades on Eastern Standard Time.

In spite of this knowledge, Maya feels perfectly comfortable hanging out with Peter, even on dark streets and in an empty house, where she manages to figure out everything by finding a single underlined passage in a book.

Meanwhile, a band of rogue priests is trying to hunt down Peter, since they are firmly anti-Satan. This, of course, leads to more silliness. You know the movie is bad when an intense fight scene has the audience bursting into laughter, as Peter's old, out-of-shape brother starts doing ninja moves during dessert.

Near the end, the movie drags out the old army of imps from End of Days, but they look a little winded as they try to bag Maya.

Lost Souls should have stayed lost.