"The Bucket List" is melodramatic, sentimental, saccharine, superficial ... and thoroughly entertaining.

It's the kind of movie that causes critics to flex their cynicism while moviegoers, wisely ignoring the experts, flock to the box office.

And why not? It's not every day that they're given the opportunity to see seasoned movie pros gleefully play off each other in a vehicle that seems tailor-made for their respective strengths.

In this case, the old pros are Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman.

Nicholson plays Edward Cole, a billionaire who's as unlikable as he is rich. Freeman is Carter Chambers, who wanted to be a college professor but instead became an auto mechanic in order to support his family.

The two men wind up as roommates in a hospital where they discover that the one thing they have in common is terminal cancer.

Prodded by Cole, they determine not to placidly waste away, but instead to squeeze as much as they can into the time that remains. They draw up a "bucket list" of dreams to fulfill prior to kicking the aforementioned container.

At that point the movie takes our duo out of the hospital to skydive, drive race cars, climb the pyramids of Egypt and visit the Himalayas, Hong Kong, Africa, India, the Riviera and other exotic points around the globe.

Along the way, they talk about faith and religion, family and marriage. They examine the measures of a life well-lived and evaluate their own performances in that department.

Justin Zackham's script doesn't probe deeply -- hence the critics' accusations of shallowness -- but it (and Rob Reiner's competent direction) keeps the audience laughing and engaged to the expectably bittersweet end.

As for Nicholson and Freeman, playing to respective type as curmudgeon and godlike wise man, they seem to be having a ball and the result is utterly contagious.