Two dying men who befriend each other in the hospital (Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman) decide to try to complete a list of things they always wanted to do before they died.

CRITIQUE

The Bucket List was advertised as a comedy, and that’s really what it should have been; whenever this movie is trying to be fun – or funny – it really comes to life.  Unfortunately, these moments are really few and far between (and most were in the commercials); instead, this is mostly a slow, talky character drama.  There are things here that work, but as I was watching this, I was constantly imagining the better movie that this really could have been.

The main characters here are wealthy Edward (Jack Nicholson) and his hospital roommate Carver (Morgan Freeman), who both don’t have long to live.  They meet as strangers, soon become friends, and ultimately decide to hit the road to do all the things in their makeshift “bucket list”, a list of everything that they want to do before they kick the bucket.

Unfortunately, it takes almost 40 minutes until they actually get around to attacking the list, and none of these sequences offers any challenges or drama at all, just the sheer spectacle of these men doing things like jumping out of a plane, racing cars, visiting the Pyramids, riding a motorcycle on the Great Wall of China, etc.  Again, most of these moments are fun, but most are over quickly, and then it is on to another talky scene in which the men muse about their life.

Helping immensely is the presence of Nicholson and Freeman, two actors who could take turns reading the phone book and hold my attention.  But as appealing as they are here, there really isn’t much meat to either of their characters, while aside from the basic premise, there really isn’t much more plot here than the phone book has.

Still, they play off each other well, and there are moments when this clicks, particularly around the ending, when everything finally becomes fairly moving.  Director Rob Reiner does his usual solid job; the main problem here is really the script.  As Edward says late in the movie, “This was supposed to be fun”; I couldn’t help but echo the same thought.

THE VIDEO

The Bucket List is presented in either standard or widescreen, depending on which side of the disk is playing.  The picture quality is fine throughout.

THE AUDIO

The Bucket List is presented in English, Spanish and French 5.1 Dolby Digital.  Dialogue, music and sound effects come through clear.  There are English, French and Spanish subtitles.

THE EXTRAS

Writing a Bucket List is a 5-minute interview with screenwriter Justin Zackham talking about bucket lists and the inspiration for the film, while a lot of clips from the movie play.

There is a 4-minute Music Video for the John Mayer song “Say”, which intercuts shots of him with a lot of clips from the movie.

FINAL THOUGHTS