(3 out of 5 stars)

Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson star as cancer patients becoming friends in the hospital and decide to stop wasting the rest of their dying life away and live it up by doing things they have always wanted to do but never got the chance. Those things were written in a piece of paper called the bucket list, the things you want to do before you kick the bucket. Their camaraderie works and is fun to watch as their relationship goes from amiable to complex once each finds out about the other’s life.

There seems to be a lot of set up to this movie, but it also seems necessary so that the characters are more than one dimensional cancer patients. Freeman plays a family man who has lost his love with his wife, and Nicholson, well, plays himself, a player always moving from woman to woman, although he also has a daughter who hated him long ago. The complexity of Freeman’s wife wanting him home and Nicholson’s need to feel loved and to love his daughter fuel the second half of the movie. It creates characters that you feel for rather than purely being entertained by.

One could have hoped for more jolly amusement and bickering, but this is not who Freeman’s Carter is. Nicholson may be a self loathing rich bastard, but Carter sees the best in people and brings it out of them, giving the audience less bickering, but a more serious story than a fun buddy movie. The stunts they do by skydiving, climbing the pyramids, and racing cars are just a small part of the movie. This movie was surprisingly about character and story, not the buddy part that previews reflected.

The Bucket List is a fine movie and might even make others think if they have done everything they want and possibly should do before their life comes to an end. You can be amused, you can be thoughtful and you can be gracious for such a nice movie to come along.

Similar recommended titles: Iron Man and Spiderman