“I think the film is disgusting beyond belief”: Karma Comes to Bite Keanu Reeves as War Veteran Director Rips John Wick 4 to Shreds Years After Actor Had Refused His $138M Oscar Winning Movie

Despite the iconic run of the four John Wick movies, Keanu Reeves is far from being done with the franchise as he is left picking up after the profits collected in the aftermath of the film series. The action star has time and again defined the success of Hollywood blockbusters in terms of the success of his run as John Wick. As of the past decade, the four films radically changed and revolutionized the genre, and without holding itself back on mass killings or violence, the Chad Stahelski x Keanu Reeves IP immortalized itself into a cult classic.

Also read: “Now we leave that open for the future”: Dwayne Johnson Had a Long Talk With Keanu Reeves to Co-Star in $7.2B Franchise

The Increasing Dislike Toward the John Wick Film Series

Almost like the chicken and egg problem or the ever-debatable conundrum about Die Hard being a Christmas film, a new puzzle materializes into existence – is John Wick an airplane movie? Despite the geographical landscape that dictates our appreciation for an artistic project, the facts of the case remain as follows: Keanu Reeves‘ John Wick was already a formidable masterpiece. The success of sequels 2 and 3 is a mystery considering how difficult it was to top the original. In its tail end, Chapter 4 was too overarching even for a film as fantastical as this one. And Chapter 5 is an absolute travesty and a dishonor to what Reeves and Stahelski created.

Also read: “I don’t want to let him down”: Keanu Reeves Revealed One Thing He’s Truly Terrified of Despite Doing Most of His Own Stunts in John Wick

Watching each Chapter of John Wick feels like a grueling workout for the audience’s sensibilities and imagination – with the visuals, the landscape of the criminal underworld, the never-ending creativity of each psychopathic assassin and their modus operandi, and to top it all off, the killings being justified by John Wick’s code of honor and his tragic life story. But not all who watch the film series can be made to align with the mass consensus of why or how the films have affected and been revered by so many. One of the dissenters happens to be the Oscar-winning filmmaker, Oliver Stone.

Keanu Reeves Gets Trashed By Oscar Winner Oliver Stone

In a recent interview with Variety, the Academy Award-winning director and producer, Oliver Stone had some strong feelings toward the Keanu Reeves-starrer, John Wick: Chapter 4. The most recent among the litany of the action IP franchise, Chapter 4 has divided the audience for its well-over-the-top action scenes and for inculcating too many sequences that match what the franchise tried to do in the past. But for Oliver Stone, the film poses a completely different array of problems:

I saw ‘John Wick 4’ on the plane. Talk about volume. I think the film is disgusting beyond belief. Disgusting. I don’t know what people are thinking. Maybe I was watching ‘G.I. Joe’ when I was a kid. But [Keanu Reeves] kills, what, three, four hundred people in the fucking movie. And as a combat veteran, I gotta tell you, not one of them is believable. I realize it’s a movie, but it’s become a video game more than a movie.

“It’s lost touch with reality. The audience perhaps likes the video game. But I get bored by it. How many cars can crash? How many stunts can you do? What’s the difference between ‘Fast and Furious’ and some other film? It’s just one thing after another. Whether it’s a super-human Marvel character or just a human being like John Wick, it doesn’t make any difference. It’s not believable.

Also read: Hollywood’s Good Guy Keanu Reeves Turned Into a Scumbag Who Hates Cate Blanchett in a Movie That Struggled to Go Past $50,000,000 at Box Office

While the latest film and the announcement of Chapter 5 might have more than a fair share of the film’s fans inclined to agree with Stone’s argument, it is also important to break down the hypocrisy of the filmmaker’s statements, especially considering how he has made a career out of the trauma and violence of war (Stone is a Vietnam War veteran and often uses his experiences as inspiration for films). Moreover, his film Natural Born Killers (adapted from Quentin Tarantino‘s screenplay) faced a good deal of criticism at the time of release for glorifying graphic violence on the big screen.

A part of the filmmaker’s resentment might also grow out of Keanu Reeves rejecting the lead role in his film Platoon in the late 80s: “Keanu turned it down because of the violence. He didn’t want to do violence.” Well, irony can be a cruel mistress, indeed.

John Wick: Chapter 4 is available for purchase on Amazon Prime Video. It will arrive for streaming on Peacock and Starz at a later date.

Source: Variety