The minute we learn of Carter's unwavering devotion to his wife, we know we'll soon see Edward getting goatish with a hot flight attendant. But apart from some perfunctory quirks (Carter is a trivia buff with an obscure factoid for every occasion Edward has a fetish for Kopi Luwak, the world's most expensive coffee), they're actually little more than walking inventories of carefully counterpoised clichés. None of these problems might have mattered so much if Edward and Carter were actual characters. Unfortunately, they're touched on in such a perfunctory fashion that you wonder why the script even bothers to bring them up - unless it's simply pandering to the senior citizens who would have to be this movie's target audience. Naturally, there's also talk of God and faith and death - subjects of eternal human concern. For a pair of cancer-wracked septuagenarians, they're astonishingly spry. They also hit a tattoo parlor and take a shot at skydiving. There follows one of those around-the-world travelogues that clearly never pulls out of Port Hollywood, with the two men touching down in such prosaic CGI destinations as Egypt (gotta see the pyramids), India (the Taj Mahal) and China (the Great Wall). Edward and Carter are sharing a hospital room (as if) when the dismal diagnosis comes down, and as Carter starts working up his sappy list - "witness something majestic," "laugh until I cry" - Edward offers to finance a last-chance globe-trot in order to check off each goal. Freeman is Carter Chambers, an amiable auto mechanic who basks in the love of his wife and kids. Nicholson plays Edward Cole, an abrasive multi-millionaire with four ex-wives and a daughter who hates him. "The Bucket List" casts Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson as two 70-year-old cancer patients with only months left to live and a list of unsampled experiences they're determined to savor before they, you know, kick the bucket. Here's a movie that feels like you're sleeping through it even as you watch the thing.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |