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Bucket List Is Leaky Schlock

Into-the-sunset tearjerker suggests that facing cancer can be fun

By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff

Posted Jan 11, 2008 1:40 PM CST

(Newser) The Bucket List, Rob Reiner’s new cancer comedy, “never ascends from the bowels of tearjerk formula and audience pandering," writes Newsday’s Jan Stuart. The film stars Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman as terminally ill buddies trying to do it all before they die. They skydive, race cars, globetrot, and “recycle old screen personas with an abandon that borders on self-parody.”

Reiner proves he’s “the rare director who can take all the wonder out of the Seven Wonders of the World,” says Entertainment Weekly’s Owen Gleiberman. Watching the boys chase adventure without suffering any pesky symptoms, Roger Ebert got annoyed: “I have had cancer, and believe me, during convalescence after surgery, the last item on your bucket list is climbing a Himalaya.”

This photo released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows actors, from left to right, Jack Nicholson, Ian Anthony Dale  and Morgan Freeman in a scene from The Bucket List.   (AP Photos/Warner Bros. Pictures, Sidney Baldwin)
This photo released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows actors, from left to right, Jack Nicholson, Ian Anthony Dale and Morgan Freeman in a scene from "The Bucket List." (AP Photos/Warner Bros. Pictures,...   (Associated Press)
Morgan Freeman plays a wise old man who teaches someone about life in... well in an awful lot  of movies, really, but this time in Bucket List.
Morgan Freeman plays a wise old man who teaches someone about life in... well in an awful lot of movies, really, but this time in "Bucket List."   (Getty Images (by Event) Individuals)
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The Bucket List - trailer   (DAGMARA10 (YouTube))

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