The Bucket List gets through its list while rarely seeming a chore. Its two great stars invite us into their company, often amusingly, always humanly.
The Bucket List (2007)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:160
Fresh:67
Rotten:93
Average Rating:5.2/10
Consensus: Not even the earnest performances of the two leads can rescue The Bucket List from its schmaltzy script.
Runtime: 1 hr 37 mins
Genre: Comedies
US Box Office: $93,452,056
Synopsis: Academy Award winners Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman star in the comedy drama "The Bucket List," directed by Rob Reiner, a touching, no-holds-barred adventure that shows it's never too late to... Academy Award winners Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman star in the comedy drama "The Bucket List," directed by Rob Reiner, a touching, no-holds-barred adventure that shows it's never too late to live life to its fullest. A long time ago, Carter Chambers' (Morgan Freeman) freshman year philosophy professor suggested that his students compose a "bucket list," a collection of all the things they wanted to do, see and experience in life before they kicked the bucket. But while Carter was still trying to define his private dreams and plans, reality intruded. Marriage, children, myriad responsibilities and, ultimately, a 46-year job as an auto mechanic gradually turned his concept of a bucket list into little more than a bittersweet memory of lost opportunities and a mental exercise he occasionally thought about to pass the time while working under the hood of a car. Meanwhile, corporate billionaire Edward Cole (Jack Nicholson) never saw a list without a bottom line. He was always too busy making money and building an empire to think about what his deeper needs might be beyond the next big acquisition or cup of gourmet coffee. Then life delivered an urgent and unexpected wake-up call to both of them. Carter and Edward found themselves sharing a hospital room with plenty of time to think about what might happen next--and about how much of that was in their hands. For all their apparent differences, they soon discovered they had two very important things in common: an unrealized need to come to terms with who they were and the choices they'd made, and a pressing desire to spend the time they had left doing everything they ever wanted to do. The list wasn't just a mental exercise anymore. It was an agenda. So, against doctor's orders and all good sense, these two virtual strangers check themselves out of the hospital and hit the road together for the adventure of a lifetime--from the Taj Mahal to the Serengeti, the finest restaurants to the seediest tattoo parlors, the cockpit of vintage race cars to the open door of a prop plane--with just a sheet of paper and their passion for life to guide them. Adding and crossing items off their list while taking in the grandeur and beauty of the world, they will grapple with the difficult questions and the even more difficult answers that plague all of us. And, without even realizing it, become true friends. With humor, insight, heart...and a fair amount of attitude. Sometimes you just need a deadline to get your life in gear. --© Warner Bros. [More]
Starring: Jack Nicholson, Morgan Freeman, Sean Hayes, Rob Morrow
Starring: Jack Nicholson, Morgan Freeman, Sean Hayes, Rob Morrow, Beverly Todd
Director: Rob Reiner
Director: Rob Reiner
Screenwriter: Justin Zackham
Producer: Alan Greisman, Rob Reiner, Craig Zadan, Neil Meron
Composer: Marc Shaiman
Studio: Warner Bros.
Reviews for The Bucket List
The film lacks much zest or narrative drive -- essentials for a movie about appreciating the time one has left.
Recycled, formulaic poignance, something Hollywood has provided buckets of over the years.
Should I immediately watch DVDs of The Departed and The Shawshank Redemption to cleanse my palate?
There are certainly worse ways to spend the holiday season than in the company of two charming old actors, being reminded that human companionship makes life worth living, even as it makes dying a little tougher.
An above-average movie elevated partly by the performances of two acting powerhouses, but mostly by the chemistry created by their pairing.
Freeman and Nicholson elevate Reiner's film with their presence and intelligence, making "The Bucket List" a relatively painless TV movie -- nothing you need to see before you die, but not causing any long-lasting malady, either.
Nicholson and Freeman are consummate professionals, and their dance of liking and loathing generates some good laughs and, if you’re inclined toward emotional displays, even a few tears.
Not every film about death needs a bald Swede and a game of chess: Sometimes, the sky-diving's enough.
By the end of The Bucket List, silliness has been replaced by pretension, and while there may not be a dry eye in the theater, many of those tears will be shed in embarrassment for giving in to such hooey.
Director Rob Reiner and screenwriter Justin Zackham's tale gets a little too caught up in the various shenanigans Edward and Carter get into.
Watching Nicholson and Freeman on the same screen and their characters Edward and Carter embarking on a sojourn of discovery is hard to resist.
Bucket's rush to sentiment leads you to think the film, not its characters, is soon to expire.
Even Freeman and Nicholson can't make gold from hay, or find greatness in Justin Zackman's skimpy, sentimental script. Their mere presence seems to be the gift we get. But it's not enough.
A manipulative look at dying with dignity and a lame yarn about as realistic as the fantasy in The Princess Bride.
The Bucket List is a movie for oldsters that, paradoxically, looks as if it was made for 15-year-olds. If this is what is meant in Hollywood as "thinking outside the box," then it's time to get a new box.
I urgently advise hospitals: Do not make the DVD available to your patients; there may be an outbreak of bedpans thrown at TV screens.
The Bucket List is 98 minutes of mawkish sentiment, a stream of greeting-card moments.
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