A year or so ago, NBC ran a few episodes of a sitcom called Twenty Good Years, starring John Lithgow and Jeffery Tambor as two sexagenarians who decide to make the most of their 60s and 70s. It showed a little promise, but I can’t say that I was too surprised when the network pulled it. Still, it was better than the similarly themed The Bucket List, which essentially adopts the same idea to a feature length film. Because a movie isn’t as open-ended as a TV show, the plot here is compressed: Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman learn that they are dying of cancer and decide to experience everything they’ve missed out on in life. This is facilitated by the fact that Nicholson is a billionaire, which allows them to move as if at will around the world, taking in the Taj Mahal one day, the south of France the next. Other reviews of the film have decried the poor special effects; maybe I’m just gullible, but I had no trouble believing that the film took its stars to these locations, and if that’s not really them skydiving, well, don’t ever let me on a jury. What I had less trouble believing was anything else about this woefully shallow film. In a would-be heart-tugger like this, we presume that the expensive adventures on which our doomed adventures embark will be a background against which they come to terms with what has been valuable in their lives. But what they conclude is so banal that even Hallmark would feel compelled to beef it up before printing it as a card. The script tries to disguise its weakness with a senseless trick ending that piles irritation onto the cinematic malnutrition. The Bucket List is little more than an excuse to generate some cash flow from the combined star power of Nicholson and Freeman, neither of whom does anything you haven’t seen them do hundred times before. (I don’t know if Nicholson purposely put on weight for this film, but he looks terrible, at least 10 years older than in The Departed.) Save your ticket money and spend it on The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, a much better film about a stricken man who learns to appreciate his life. (It’s scheduled to open in Buffalo next week.)