I had seen the trailers for this movie and it did look like a fun comedy worth catching. Turns out it was but a bit more.

Setting up the movie we see Carter played by Morgan Freeman at his job as a mechanic. He is answering trivia questions from a young guy who's trying to stump him so we know he's an educated or at least a well-read man. Side note here is that I knew the answer to the "who invented the radio" question. It was Tesla and not Marconi as commonly thought. In the movie the book had it wrong and Carter points this out. Yes, I'm a geek.

So Carter gets a phone call with apparently bad news. He doesn't understand at first but by the look on his face and the reaction to the cigarette in his hand we are to assume he's just been told he has cancer.

We go to Jack Nicholson who plays Edward Cole who is your typical white, rich snob who runs hospitals to peak efficiency for profit. He's at a board meeting to discuss taking over a hospital that has monetary problems. They don't like the idea of Cole coming in to take over citing concerns over understaffed departments, patient crowding and more. Granted my viewpoint was that these problems are nothing compared to shutting down the hospital due to lack of funds. But anyway.

In this meeting Cole coughs up blood which leads him to the hospital and to the room with Carter which begins a strange friendship. Both have cancer and both have been given a very low chance of surviving. We're talking months or a year at most.

Carter's response is to start a list of things he would like to do before he dies which is called the bucket list. Or, things to do before you kick the bucket. Cole finds the list and being rich with nothing better to do he decides to take his new friend around the world to try to check off every item on the list.

Thus begins their adventures some of which are interesting but boring and others seem much more enriching. First they skydive, drive old sports cars and Cole gets a tattoo but Carter chickens out. Where their adventures get interesting is when they take advantage of Cole's wealth and travel the world. Cole takes Carter to one of his favorite expensive restaurants in France, they see the Egyptian pyramids first hand, drive a motorcycle down the Great Wall (I'd like to see the Wall myself) and other tourist type things. But Carter's biggest dream is to climb a bit up Mount Everest but cannot due to weather.

During all this the movie changes to just not being a comedy about two old farts having their adventures but into something a bit more touching. This movie has serious character development especially for Nicholson's part. By the end of the movie you can see this man is different simply because of his friendship with Carter.

Things end in a way that you would sort of expect them to but there is a slight deviation that makes the story line all the more touching. I felt this was a good movie and would recommend it. But if you're expecting a comedy all the way through and may be bummed that it's not then it's not for you.

Plus Morgan Freeman is in it and just about anything that he does is worth sitting through just for him.