Cupid (1997)

Number Rolled: 5

Movie Name/Year: Cupid (1997)

Genre: Thriller

Length: 95 minutes

Rating: R

Director: Doug Campbell

Writer: David Benullo

Actors: Zach Galligan, Ashley Laurence, Mary Crosby, Joseph Kell, Annie Fitzgerald, Henry Brown, Margaret Blye, Michael Bowen, Alina Thompson, Michael Fairman, Christopher Kriesa, Arabella Holzbog

This movie was not described well in Netflix’s one sentence blurb. What Netflix had goes as follows: “A woman develops a huge crush on her handsome co-worker, but he turns out to be a murderous psycho who ruthlessly calculates her compatibility.” Let me deconstruct this for you. The ‘psycho’ was actually a Greek/Roman mythology fanatic that believed down to the depths of his soul in the myth of Cupid and Psyche. The delusional male was not the woman’s co-worker. In fact, he was independently wealthy and worked only as an independent writer. Lastly, he didn’t do much calculating of their compatibility, he took one look at her and knew their compatibility.

So, I’m going to rewrite that one sentence blurb here so that it’s actually for this movie, and not whatever movie that thought it was supposed to be for. “A woman moves to L.A. where she finds herself dating a delusional man who believes that she is Psyche and he is Cupid.” That is my one sentence that actually depicts the correct plot.

I had my issues with this movie. The soundtrack made me want to throw my popcorn at the screen; in fact, it often overshadowed the dialog so much, that I couldn’t hear everything without turning the volume up to the most ridiculous level. Then there was the variation of the Psyche/Cupid myth used in the script was so deviant from the actual, that it might as well have been something entirely different. Lastly, the ending was horrible. It was just a train-wreck. Like the writer got bored and just threw together whatever clichés he could think of.

However, aside from those issues, it was ok. The thing I’ll remember most about this movie is how annoyed I am at the perversion of the Cupid/Psyche myth, which I’m actually quite fond of in its pure state.

Overall Opinion – 2.5/5

If you are interested in the actual myth of Cupid and Psyche, you can find a decent version here: http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/cupid.html