The world of film has a long and proud history of following leaders, from small indie mockbusters to the big studios sticking to what's already been proven. Rip-offs are a proud tradition in every art medium, and while they vary wildly in quality, they have a hard time hiding their illicit source material.
The biggest names in action cinema today are largely inspired by comic books or remade from earlier classics. So many modern action movies are simple adaptations of an existing style to a barely-present story. When so many action movies just trade off of the current trend, it takes a lot of work to stand out as a rip-off.
Sudden Death
Die Hard is, in many ways, the quintessential American action blockbuster. John McTiernan's 1988 classic sticks one hard-bitten public servant against a squad of heavily armed terrorists in a seemingly unwinnable scenario with hostages' lives on the line. It inspired its own subgenre of knockoffs. Countless films boil down to the same central plot line with a new location and star. Sudden Death puts Jean-Claude Van Damme in the role of Darren McCord, a hard-nosed firefighter who finds himself in a classic Die Hard situation. It's the same basic story, but set in a hockey stadium instead of a skyscraper, with a daughter instead of a wife, and a lot of mascot costumes. The film obviously pales in comparison to the movie it rips off, but it's one of Van Damme's best. It's absurd in a way that suggests some level of self-awareness, which is so often absent from films that could be fun.
R.O.T.O.R.
Another feature that inspired a world of imitators and knock-offs was Paul Verhoeven's Robocop. It's fairly cheap to dress a man up in a cop outfit, add something to obscure his face, and send him on a clunky rampage against a bunch of comic book criminals. R.O.T.O.R. is among the worst of the bunch, as it adds in a touch of Terminator and a dash of Judge Dredd. The plot concerns a robotic cop who is abandoned by his creator long before he's finished. The resulting machine is dubbed the Robotic Officer of the Tactical Operations Research or Reserve, depending on the scene. After a freak accident, he takes to the streets destroying anyone he sees who commits the slightest misdemeanor. It's a comical film, packed with silly-looking people doing battle in contrived scenarios. One could almost buy it as a parody. It's good for a laugh, with the right audience.
Gamera vs. Barugon
Some rip-offs are more comfortable admitting their status than others. The Gamera franchise came out of a blatant effort to capture the glory of Ishiro Honda's landmark Godzilla franchise. Just like that 1954 classic, the first film in the franchise is a giant monster horror film and the sequel is an action blockbuster. Gamera vs. Barugon pits the eponymous giant turtle against a lizard monster with a bizarre mystical backstory. It's got all the kaiju action any fan would expect out of a lesser pretender to the King of the Monster's throne. People in suits smashing each other through buildings never gets old to the hardcore kaiju fan. Gamera never lived up to the standard of Godzilla, always playing second fiddle at best. The franchise stopped putting out sequels back in 2006, but some fans are still out there hoping for a return.
Atlantic Rim
The ultimate home of rip-off cinema is The Asylum, where every production is a mockbuster blatantly designed to grift a bit of cash off of a big name. Almost any big-budget movie released in the past couple of decades has a shameful cash-in rip-off from The Asylum. Instead of trying to distance themselves from the accusation with a new title, The Asylum's goal is to trick less-savvy viewers into accidentally picking up the wrong DVD. Atlantic Rim is their take on Guillermo del Toro's beloved 2012 blockbuster Pacific Rim. It's the same basic storyline, mankind makes giant robots to do battle with the giant monsters at their shores. Pacific Rim is a deceptively simple film, with hidden layers of cleverness that Atlantic Rim is all too happy to spit in the face of. Luckily, most film fans know what The Asylum is pushing, so they're relegated to MST3K at best.
Beckman
Sure, there's shame in a lame by-the-numbers JCVD vehicle or a no-budget Robocop knock-off or a creatively bankrupt Asylum production, but they all pale in comparison to Beckman. A single screenshot might not necessarily give it away, but two or three seconds of footage makes it obvious. Beckman is John Wick, but as a nakedly obvious peace of Christian propaganda by the people who make the God's Not Dead movies. All the violent murder fans would expect from the Keanu Reeves-led franchise but in service of a religion that claims to seek peace. It's the Insane Clown Posse of movies, but still somehow worse as an overall product. The greatest shame is that this film had $1.2 million to burn, while creative people struggle to gather the budget to make something worthwhile. Some rip-offs are decent films, others are fun trash, but Beckman is a mortal sin without repentance.