Filmmaker Stone finds the fourth installment, starring Keanu Reeves, unnecessarily violent.
On March 23, 2023, the fourth part of “John Wick” was released in cinemas. Since then, the actioner has grossed around 427 million US dollars worldwide – and that on a budget of almost 100 million US dollars. So actually a success for the director Chad Stahelski, who already sat in the director’s chair with the previous Wick works.
But if you ask director and screenwriter Oliver Stone, he doesn’t think much of the story about hitman John Wick, played by Keanu Reeves. In an interview with “Variety‘ the filmmaker said harshly about the new installment in the series:
I saw ‘John Wick 4’ on the plane. What volume. I think the film is incredibly disgusting. nauseating. I don’t know what people think. Maybe I saw GI Joe when I was a kid. But [Keanu Reeves] kills three, four hundred people in this damn movie. And as a war veteran, I have to say that none of them are credible. I realize it’s a movie, but it’s more of a video game than a movie.
Criticism has focused primarily on the excessive violence depicted in John Wick: Chapter 4. From his point of view, the film is more like a first-person shooter game than a serious sequel. Stone finds the 169-minute action flick too loud and too exaggerated.
According to Stone, the fourth part has lost any connection to reality. He thinks that audiences might find this very aspect interesting if they love video games. It no longer makes any difference whether you’re watching a comic book character or John Wick on screen. “It’s not believable,” says Stone, 76.
“How many cars can cause an accident? How many stunts can you do? What is the difference between ‘Fast and Furious’ and any other film? It’s just one thing at a time. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a superhuman Marvel character or a human like John Wick,” Stone said.