While Reset is not really a time travel movie or a parallel earth movie, it does manage to be both and neither at the same time. A science crew trying to study time travel is the main focus of the plot. To make matters worse, the American’s take an interest in their work after failing on their own and winding up with a bunch of madmen and corpses, which did not end well for them.
Xia Tian is the main character and is a single mother trying to put her life back together post-divorce. Her son’s name is Dou Dou, and he is mainly taken care of by a nanny because Tian is busy at work all the time. At some point in the story, Dou Dou gets kidnapped. Tian rushes home and gets captured herself. She is told to upload the files, or else they will blow up the bomb that is implanted in the neck of her son. To her tasks, off goes Tian to get two other people to scan their irises to get into the mainframe. Things don’t work out for her at all; she is somewhat of a clumsy and annoying person. Ultimately, she does extract the information, but gives it to the bad guys and to her misfortune, they kill her son. Tian gets her hands free and uses the machine to go back in time to save her son.
So, as the story continues, the good part begins. While time traveling, she seems to be more goal driven and intelligent. Not only does she achieve what she sets out to do, she also alters the outcome so that she is an entirely different person. The only issue is, she has no idea how to leave with Dou Dou still alive.
While the movie does have some good twists, I must commend Yang Mi for pulling off such different roles. For a start, she plays a frantic mother type character, which, unfortunately, we spend too long watching. This takes away a lot of believability out of the film. Personally, I do not believe that she could be a brilliant scientist while playing this role. The second version is cool, calm and collected. Now she’s a major badass, but a reasonable one with the right emotions for a mother trying to save her son. The third variation is that of a hyper-violent version. She doesn’t say much, but she gives these nasty glares that most definitely make this third form of the character stand out. It’s especially impressive to watch all of the differences together on screen. For the most part, it does not even look like the same actress.
The start and finish of the narrative are a little lackluster. Setting up the first scenario takes a while, but it’s meant to lay the groundwork for the rest of the story. It’s effective but some elements border on the ridiculous. There are a lot of ridiculous parts, though I don’t remember all of them at the moment. The rock climbing section is an odd homage to Star Trek 4. It is so funny that it is almost too incongruous. One of the characters seems to simply teleport around and gets everything done. At some point he has been shot and left for dead, yet manages to crawl out to the lobby.
The graphics and the look of the movie are amazing. It looks as amazing as, or even better than, a number of Hollywood productions. The special effects for the time travel was so creative, unique and interesting that you wish they had used them at least one more time. The weak link is the story, which is not awful by any means, but it’s not so complex that you can’t figure it out in advance. It turns more into the performances and the enigma of why she was given this assignment in the first place. That part is good, and that is a nice addition to the plot.
It is no wonder that Reset and Yang Mi won the award for the Best Action Movie Actress at the Jackie Chan Action Movie Awards last year. This film is his baby as he is the special presenter and executive producer of the film. He does not feature in the film, which is refreshing given how many films he has been churning out of late. Generally, if you want to watch a good movie that has loads of action and a new twist to time travel, then watch Reset.
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