10 Recent Movies That Were HUGE Ripoffs

Now for a movie which proves that blatant rip-offs don't actually have to be bad, we have the surprisingly decent new Jason Statham revenge thriller, The Beekeeper.

Despite the dubious early January release date and ever-inconsistent David Ayer (Fury, Suicide Squad) directing, this is basically the best case scenario for a Stath-starring low-rent John Wick knock-off.

Where to begin? Much like John Wick, The Beekeeper's protagonist, Adam Clay (Statham), is a retired assassin who decides to come out of retirement when a tragedy befalls him.

Rather than his adorable dog being killed, though, it's his dear friend Eloise (Phylicia Rashad), who falls for a phishing scam, loses all her money, and promptly commits suicide. Oh, but the bad guys kill Clay's beloved bees too.

This sends Clay on a roaring rampage of revenge as he tracks down the tech-bro douche responsible, Derek Danforth (Josh Hutcherson) - not dissimilar to John Wick's thoroughly detestable villain Iosef Tarasov (Alfie Allen) - and sets about dismantling his entire criminal enterprise.

Throw in a few neon-lit fight scenes, a parental figure who can't abide Derek's idiocy, and an intriguing yet vaguely defined criminal underworld involving the aforementioned Beekeepers, and there's no disguising where this movie is taking its cues from.

And yet, the end result is a genuinely fun, pacy action flick that doesn't dare to take itself too seriously, even if it stands in the long shadow cast by its forebear.