If they said you were going to kick the bucket soon, what would be on your wish list of things to do first: Hitch a ride on the next lunar voyage? Or see a movie in which Jack Nicholson was gently agreeable and Morgan Freeman wildly cantankerous?

You'd have more chance of the former than the latter. No role reversals allowed for this star duo -- dead or alive. Which doesn't mean they and their "Bucket List" aren't fairly enjoyable. Just wholly predictable.

Edward (Nicholson) is an abrasive billionaire whose holdings include a hospital with the strict, patient-unfriendly rule: "Two beds to a room, no exceptions!" He soon finds himself sharing one with a worn-out auto mechanic named Carter (Freeman).

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'The Bucket List'

• Starring: Jack Nicholson, Morgan Freeman and Sean Hayes.
• Rating: PG-13 for language.
• Movie Website: thebucketlist.warnerbros.com

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Both men have cancer, and stunted emotions. Edward, who had four wives, calls his second wife "the sequel" and is estranged from his daughter. Carter, a frustrated historian with just one 45-year marriage, seems fonder of "Jeopardy" than of his faithful wife (Beverly Todd) and son (Alfonso Freeman -- Morgan's real-life offspring).

Remember the old Terminal Lunch on Carson Street? Jack and Morgan are headed for the Terminal Banquet. Edward, informed of his terminality while watching a baseball game through funny glasses, responds, "Hey, Doc, you're blockin' my view."

Nothing's funny about the brain operation and horrendous first round of chemo, leading to real friendship and joint creation of that list of kicky things to do before kicking.

Skydiving is the first and silliest of them, followed by some vintage car-racing slapstick before the travelogue gets under way. Edward has a little "medicinal sex" on the private plane. Carter acclimates quickly to a round-the-world taste of luxury.

Is that Monaco and the Riviera outside the ritzy restaurant window? I'm not sure, but it's so fake that both the ocean and the boat on it are stationary -- no movement of either one.

Doesn't look like Jack and Morgan spent much real time on safari in Kenya or at the top of an Egyptian pyramid, either. Nor at the Taj Mahal or in the Himalayas. Director Rob Reiner's travel budget was evidently limited to his frequent-flier miles.

The "conflict," such as it is, involves Carter's wife's opposition to her husband's spending his last days joyriding with a maniacal billionaire instead of boo-hooing at home with her. Justin Zackham is said to have written the script in just two weeks. It shows. Any baby, celluloid or otherwise, would die from this formula. Zackham even steals and inserts the ancient "three rules of male old age" joke, of which only Rule No. 1 is printable in a family paper: Never pass up a urinal.

On the positive side, Sean Hayes of "Will & Grace" fame gives a fine supporting performance as Edward's long-suffering assistant and straight man.

Nicholson and Reiner were previously teamed for the '92 classic "A Few Good Men," to Oscar effect. Here, Nicholson (with his head shaved, looking uncannily like Rod Steiger) and Freeman (trying hard to be a little wacky) do OK, but Reiner, counting on their automatic magic, has let them down.

Full of shameless schmaltz and a death-can-be-fun insistence, the movie lacks reality or profundity. It's "The Odd Cancer Couple," offering a peculiar blend of chuckles and sniffles.