With impressive scores on Rotten Tomatoes and impressive box office numbers, John Wick: Chapter 4 has proven to be one of the most popular films of 2023. But someone who isn’t a fan is the filmmaker behind Natural Born Killers and Platoon, Oliver Stone.
In a new interview with Variety, Stone held nothing back when he lambasted the John Wick film franchise for becoming a “video game” with its excessive kill count.
Stone begins, “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.”
He continues, “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.”
He turns his attention to other blockbusters, hinting there’s nothing more artistic in this film than something you’d see in an MCU movie or Fast film.
The filmmaker says, “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?”
He concludes, “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,” before adding, “It’s not believable.”
It seems like Oliver Stone’s airplane viewing of John Wick: Chapter 4 didn’t pan out, but he seems not happy with the state of the industry. During the same event, the actor reportedly said, “People in showbiz are idiots. They just go with the trend; they just go with the fashion — it’s a fashion business.”
He notes that he’s not “not complaining” and is cooking up his ideas. Stone adds, “I made 20 feature films. Maybe I’ll make 21 before I go. That’d be nice. I have one in mind, but I’m not going to tell you what it is.”
SEE ALSO: Read our ★★★★★ review of John Wick: Chapter 4 here
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“John Wick (Keanu Reeves) uncovers a path to defeating the High Table. But before he can earn his freedom, Wick must face off against a new enemy with powerful alliances across the globe and forces that turn old friends into foes.”
John Wick: Chapter 4 is once again directed by Chad Stahelski and stars Keanu Reeves as John Wick, Lance Reddick as Charon, Ian McShane as Winston, and Laurence Fishburne as The Bowery King. Newcomers to the franchise include Donnie Yen (Ip Man), Japanese-British pop singer Rina Sawayama, Hiroyuki Sanada (Army of the Dead), Marko Zaror (From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series), Shamier Anderson (Wynonna Earp), Bill Skarsgård (It: Chapter Two), Scott Adkins (The Bourne Ultimatum) and Clancy Brown (The Shawshank Redemption).
