'Bucket List' like TV's 'Earl' -- but better

You know those "to do" lists you keep in different places - at home, at work, in your wallet - that you actually get to check off once in awhile? This dramatic comedy about two terminally ill guys who meet in a double hospital room suggests that you should get cooking on those lists now. That song "Enjoy Yourself (It's Later Than You Think)" from "Everyone Says I Love You" comes to mind.

Another thing that seems to be on people's minds is that "The Bucket List" - the title refers to a list of things to do before you kick the bucket - is a morbid idea for a movie. In this case, it's a wrong assumption. There's a gloomy moment or two; these guys do, after all, have cancer, and each has been allotted six months to a year, give or take.

But the teaming of Jack Nicholson as a ridiculously wealthy but lonely corporate guy who takes over then privatizes hospitals, and Morgan Freeman as a genial, chain-smoking auto mechanic who has a happy family but has outgrown his dreams, was made with comic head-butting in mind.

It's an opposites attracting story. Nicholson's Edward Cole is stubborn and iron-fisted when it comes to his career and to his inflated self-importance. Freeman's Carter Chambers is a laid-back but outgoing fellow who enjoys nothing more than sharing his vast reservoir of trivial knowledge, much of which he gets from his addiction to "Jeopardy!"

Watching these two guys interact is a pleasure, and it's clear that each (the actors, not the characters) is having a blast reacting to the other, right from their introduction in side-by-side beds, up to their games of gin, their turns getting the shakes, and their eventual globe-hopping adventures while in temporary remission.

Director Rob Reiner, who hasn't had a bona fide hit since "A Few Good Men," also with Nicholson, has wisely just let his two old pro lead actors have a go with their parts. They manage to put a convincingly humorous touch to a vomiting scene, add a mischievous sparkle to their eyes when they decide to work on that titular list together, energetically rejoice like little kids when they're speeding around a track in race cars or through the air before pulling ripcords.

The film loses some of its grip on reality when the script deals with Carter making the decision to leave his wife at home while he goes out on this final adventure - that subject alone would make for an interesting film. But here it's glossed over rather than dealt with.

And soon he and Edward, who's generously and easily footing the exorbitant bill, are jetting around the world to great European restaurants, to the Taj Mahal (where Carter spouts off some detailed historical perspective) to the pyramids (where they just sit and contemplate).

Comic highlights include the banter between Nicholson and his assistant - and private cook - Thomas (played in deadpan manner by "Will & Grace's" Sean Hayes) and from Nicholson's willingness to take a couple of pratfalls.

But the film's serious edge has plenty of opportunity to shine, and does so in the "life's ups and downs" conversations between Edward and Carter that predictably bring the two opposites together. There are a couple of token thought-provoking scenes of Virginia (Beverly Todd) demanding that Edward give her husband back to her, and Freeman's practically film-length voiceovers (has Freeman ever been in a film that he hasn't also narrated?) manage to combine a sense of gravity and whimsy.

It's hard to watch the film and not think about the similar but far goofier premise of "My Name Is Earl" and that TV show's list of accomplishments to be checked off. But this is an "Earl" for a more mature audience. This also marks a probable return to hit-making status for Reiner. Fans of foreshadowing will enjoy what he eventually does with a Chock Full o' Nuts coffee can seen right near the start, and will likely equally enjoy the bittersweet ride he makes of his film.

Rated PG-13. "The Bucket List" contains language, including a sexual reference.