Oliver Stone calls John Wick 4 'disgusting beyond belief'

Oscar-winning filmmaker-turned-in-flight-movie-critic Oliver Stone has a bone to pick with John Wick: Chapter 4.

The Platoon director flew to Romania to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Transilvania Film Festival. During his flight, he watched the latest Keanu Reeves kill fest — and he was not impressed.

Andreas Rentz/Getty Images; Murray Close/Lionsgate Oliver Stone; Keanu Reeves in 'John Wick 4'

"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," Stone told Variety. "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."

This may sound strange coming from the man who wrote Scarface, which famously ends in an orgy of blood, and directed Natural Born Killers, a source of controversy for its depiction of violence, which was later linked to so-called "copycat crimes."

"I never had experienced the level of animosity and aggression or disdain from journalists. They were so so mad at us! Like, we were at fault!" Natural Born Killers' star Juliette Lewis told EW in 2019 of the backlash. "But when you started getting the stories of where you blame [the film for crimes] — I don't go to criminals to get their excuses."

But Stone's issues with John Wick seem to derive not from the violence, but the lack of realism in the violence.

"It's lost touch with reality. The audience perhaps likes the video game. But I get bored by it," he continued. "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 superhuman Marvel character or just a human being like John Wick, it doesn't make any difference. It's not believable."

So he's saying a man killing 400 people with his bare hands or early-00s hip-hop and R&B stars driving a car rocket into space isn't believable? How dare he.

Want more movie news? Sign up for Entertainment Weekly's free newsletter to get the latest trailers, celebrity interviews, film reviews, and more.

Related content:

• Juliette Lewis looks back on media disdain for Natural Born Killers: 'They were so, so mad at us'

• John Wick: Chapter 4 director Chad Stahelski is thinking Keanu Reeves could be back in a fifth movie

• 'We were at war in South Beach': An oral history of Any Given Sunday