It’s safety-first adventuring and safety-first filmmaking, both of which should be mortal sins.
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 irony of it all, considering the message of The Bucket List, is that when the obituaries for all three of these Hollywood legends is written, this film won't even merit a footnote.
Cynics who hate life affirming films and moviegoers who would just as soon not see movies about fatal diseases can give this a pass.
enjoyable for the most part and touching in others, but nothing surprising or groundbreaking.
Boomers and older will love it. Others should too.... The plus is it's played out by two terrific actors of our time.
It might be a decent movie with very good performances, but it should see a quick box office death.
Dying just seems an excuse for a geriatric, spend-it-all Spring Break.
A warning is in order. You may leave the theater with a guilty conscious, having hoped that both of them would just go ahead and die in order to put you out of your misery.
The most insipidly innocuous film ever made about facing mortality and living it up before passing away, The Bucket List has as much poetry and poise as its clumsy, clunky title.
Reiner cannot reconcile the wildly different tones of the movie: buffoonish comedy one minute, treacly life-and-death melodrama the next.
Nothing wrong about a movie that says, Stop and smell the roses. Now, if only director Rob Reiner hadn't rubbed our noses in a bouquet of plastic blooms.
There are big laughs and minor moments of grace in The Bucket List. It's also fun to watch these two swap lines, Nicholson angry and antic, Freeman laid back and serene.
Great actors sometimes transcend their material, but Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman can't pull their boots free from the ankle-deep schmaltz of The Bucket List.
...so chock-full of stale homilies and phony self-help foolishness, it makes Mitch Albom look like John Cassavetes.
The overall sense is of a movie coasting on an obvious and somewhat flimsy premise, to which no one thought to bring much else besides Nicholson and Freeman.
Thinking about taking a road trip with Nicholson and Freeman sounds like the best thing ever. Perhaps it would have been in a more serious, less light-hearted film.
This being Oscar-coveting Hollywood claptrap, class barriers vanish as the two become best friends and Nicholson bankrolls a spree in which they indulge their deepest romantic whims.
The leads, who were born six weeks apart in 1937, have remarkable hare-and-tortoise chemistry.
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