CinePhillyist Reviews... The Bucket List

Imaginary phone call between Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman (pretend you're hearing it it in their voices):

JN: Hey there, Morgan. What are you up to the next six weeks?
MF: Don't have any set plans, Jack. All the voice-over work I'm doing these days is pretty flexible. To be perfectly honest with you, it's a little boring.
JN: I hear ya. Diane Keaton is tied up making shit movies for the next few months, so I don't have anything to work on and I'm getting a little stir crazy. Was thinking I'd maybe do some traveling. That's what I was calling about, actually.
MF: Now Jack, it's not as if you're hurting for people who you can take on vacation with you.
JN: No, Morgan. I said traveling, not vacation. How'd you like to travel the world and get paid for it?
MF: I don't need to. I get paid plenty.
JN: Yeah, but how'd you like to travel the world, get paid for it, and do a movie that you'll actually get to appear in?
MF: No voiceovers?
JN: Well... Maybe a short intro and outro. But no penguins. Whaddya say?
MF: Can we race sports cars and sit on top of a pyramid?
JN: Why the hell not? You in?
MF: I'm in.

That may not give you a plot summary of The Bucket List, but it gives you a pretty good idea of what you're in store for if you go to see it: lots of scenic vistas held together by a loosely-woven plot conceived for the purpose of giving Jack and Morgan (and Rob Reiner and the guy who played Jack on Will and Grace and the whole production crew) an excuse to avoid their wives and girlfriends while they traveled for a while.

It's entertaining enough, but pretty much everyone listed above has made legitimately good movies, and this isn't one of those. Feel-good, perhaps: especially if you're a rich old person with terminal cancer, or know someone who is. If you're not, or you don't, the movie becomes significantly less plausible. And maybe even a little insulting to people who are really dying of terminal illnesses. Dying isn't fun, folks. Even if you get to race sports cars and sit on top of pyramids.

Image used courtesy of Warner Bros Pictures Online.