alerians: Rion opens on a scene straight out of Akira, as a half-naked, disoriented, headachy teenage boy awakens inside what looks like a giant MRI scanner, blasts his way loose and begins using psychic energy and pyrokinesis to kill everyone who gets in his way. From a terrified scientist who ineffectually orders him back into "the isolation chamber," he learns that his name is Rion. All other knowledge about himself has disappeared. But a girl's voice in his head keeps calling for help, and the armored soldiers and creepy doctor trying to recontain him keep him too busy to obsess too much about his missing memories.
After a series of increasingly savage fights, during which he learns how to use drugs to control his powers somewhat, Rion works his way to a computer center, where he learns the location of his family's home. A few more fights later, he returns to that home, where he suffers a series of unpleasant flashbacks. Those visions fill in some of the blanks, putting a name to the person who's telepathically summoning him, and explaining his connection with her. The girl, Lilia, tells Rion where she is, but to get to her he first has to defeat a series of identical black-trenchcoated assassins with powers similar to his, and then deal with several unique (and uniquely insane) individuals with their own sets of powers. More explosive battles ensue.
As Rion learns along the way, the reason he and Lilia can't go 10 steps in any direction without being attacked by a psychic psychopath has to do with a supercomputer named Dorothy, who has taken control of society and considers herself a god. To help her eliminate humanity, Dorothy has developed her own race of warriors: the Galerians, a handful of genetically manipulated humans with powers such as telekinesis, teleportation and the ability to fling gigantic waves of electric frap at each other. Rion and Lilia have been deemed a problem, and Dorothy's Galerians are determined to kill them. Naturally, a showdown with Dorothy herself becomes necessary.
A videogame becomes anime—barely
Galerians: Rion is an expansion and adaptation of a CGI video game (2000's Galerians, which was followed in 2002 by Galerians: Ash), and its origins show in virtually every weak, halfhearted plot point. The entire film amounts to a standard set of escalating video-game conflicts as Rion fights one level boss after another, very occasionally collecting information or special items that help him proceed. Character development is limited to post-combat revelations, as every one of the Galerians responds to imminent death by briefly turning from a threatening figure into a pained, sympathetic one, and to some final-act blither that tries to make a massive story twist out of a plot point that should be self-evident.
Pretty much the only reason to watch Galerians: Rion is for the glossy CGI, which looks like a cut-rate version of the animation used in the Final Fantasy movie and recent games. When the characters hold still, the images are stunning, packed with texture, vivid color, minute detail and distinctly anime-like characters that still manage a certain amount of photorealism. But when the characters speak or act, the illusion quickly shatters; the mouth and body movements look wrong, the characters glide rather than walk, and their faces are fixed, plastic and doll-like.
Action fans, or fans of the original Galerians video game, may still enjoy the many spectacularly flashy combats; Rion's victories are more a matter of raw power than planning or wit, but the fireworks as he gears up to his full abilities are tremendous and colorful. A big-name slate of musical contributors adds to the effect—Sevendust, Skinny Puppy, Fear Factory and Slipknot are among the bands whose work has been used or remixed for the soundtrack.
But flash and noise are about all Galerians has to offer. The stilted dialogue, limping and over-obvious plot, and slick, surface-level emotional content aren't likely to win viewers over—excepting, of course, the few viewers who drooled over other rote video-game adaptations like Sin: The Movie and Grey: Final Target. Once again, the question is, who would rather sit and watch a videogame than actually play one?
Some sort of featurette about how this video grew out of the game, and what the original game was like, would have been a natural for this DVD. Alas, the only thing appearing under the extras menu is a dizzying trailer—and, oddly enough, the, subtitle options. It's nice to know that Galerians can be watched in French, Spanish or German, as well as English, but is that really an extra?
— Tasha
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