10 Sci-Fi Rip-Off Movies (That Messed Up What They Copied)
7. Lockout
2012's Lockout stars Guy Pearce as Marion Snow, a former government agent who in 2079 is framed for murder and sentenced to 30 years of stasis onboard a space prison. Before he begins his sentence, though, he's offered a way out.
The U.S. President's daughter Emilie Warnock (Maggie Grace) has been taken hostage aboard the very same space penitentiary with the inmates overrunning the prison, and so if Snow can get her to safety, he'll have his sentence commuted.
Gee, doesn't that sound a teensy bit familiar? Even before Lockout was released, many noted the narrative similarities to John Carpenter's dystopian action thrillers Escape from New York and Escape from L.A.
And the "inspiration" only became clearer once Lockout hit cinemas - the campy tone and Pearce's wise-cracking, Kurt Russell-esque performance both felt lifted quite liberally from Carpenter's movies.
In fact, what some might've termed a "homage" actually led to Carpenter successfully suing the filmmakers for plagiarism in 2015, resulting in studio EuropaCorp eventually being forced to pay out €450,000 in damages.
Though it's probably fair to say that Lockout is one of the "better" - or at least more watchable - films on this list, it never manages to fully capture the charm, thrills, or sheer badassery of Carpenter's original.
And that's without even getting into the CGI during the above scene, which ranks among the worst featured in any theatrically released film over the last 20 years. Yikes.