REEL CRITICS:

Director Rob Reiner has another crowd pleaser with “The Bucket List,” starring old pros Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. A sort of “Thelma and Louise” for the AARP set, it’s a likable enough premise. But that bucket sure has a lot of holes.

Edward [Nicholson] and Carter [Freeman] meet and form a close bond when they must share a hospital room. When the doctor gives them each a grim diagnosis, they make a “things to do before you’re dead” list. Rather than spend time comforting others about their impending fate, they decide to go out and do exactly what they want in high style.

Edward just happens to be a gazillionaire, so trips around the world on a private jet are completely doable — right up to the nifty little outfits.

It’s also quite lucky that both men, after completing several rounds of intense chemotherapy, are robust enough to eat and drink whatever they please and trek up the Great Pyramid and through Nepal. Real life should be so tidy.

“The Bucket List” does make you think about priorities and what would we do if we had only a short time remaining on Earth, a personal assistant and an unlimited budget.

Genuine emotion is offset by the movie’s predictability, right down to the casting and the beautifully planned Kleenex moments.

How much more interesting would it be, for example, if just once Morgan Freeman played a cranky, reprehensible millionaire and Jack dropped his smirk to play a dignified mechanic and family man? My bucket would runneth over.

‘Treasure’ is ‘Indiana Jones,’ sans sharp wit

Jerry Bruckheimer is the master of low-brow formula films with big budgets marked by very loud special effects. “Bad Boys,” “Con Air” and “Armageddon” are just a few examples of his work. In his second “National Treasure” enterprise he tones down the noise.

But he increases the nonsense level of the plot to ensure that no one will take this story seriously.

It involves another convoluted treasure hunt with silly clues and impossible tasks. A lost city of gold beneath Mount Rushmore is the prize. Jerry wants to reprise “Indiana Jones” without the sharp wit and satire that made the original worthwhile. But it works well enough to have earned $187 million so far, making it one of the year’s best money makers.

Still, you may never see a movie with four Oscar winners as pointless as this one. Helen Mirren, Ed Harris, John Voight and Harvey Keitel join Nicolas Cage in a cornball exercise aimed at the lowest common denominator of action movie fans. See it only if you need a pure escapist fix that requires no rational thinking.

SUSANNE PEREZ lives in Costa Mesa and is an executive assistant for a financial services company. JOHN DEPKO is a Costa Mesa resident and a senior investigator for the Orange County public defender’s office.