The Film (3/5)

Writer Arthur C. Pierce and Director Franklin Adreon , fresh off from their conglomeration with Cyborg 2087, are back with more time traveling science fiction with Dimension 5. Well maybe not so much science fiction, but there is time-travel.

An Asian crime syndicate, called Dragon led by number one Dragon Big Buddha (Harold Sakata, Mako the Jaws of Death) , threatens to destroy Los Angeles with a hydrogen bomb.  Justin Power (Jeffery Hunter, The Searchers), an agent from Espionage, Inc., who just finished a mission, is immediately called in by his supervisor Cane (Donald Woods, True Grit),to stop Dragon with their destructive plans. Powers has a time-travel belt which he just used in his previous mission and naturally he has to do some more time-traveling to save Los Angeles. First off , agents of Espionage, Inc. capture a Dragon agent, Chang (Gerald Jann, Confessions of an Opium Eater) and is questioned at Espionage’s headquarters by the Professor (Jon Lormer, The Learning Tree), and his assistant, Miss Sweet (Deanna Lund, Sting of Death) Chang supplies much needed information to help Powers with his mission. He also gets a partner to help him in this mission from, Ki Ti Tsu (aka Kitty) (France Nuyen, South Pacific). He uses his time-travel belt to go three weeks into the future with Kitty, in an attempt to stop Big Buddha.

I had expected more in the science fiction department but Dimension 5 plays more like a B level James Bond movie. Jeffery Hunter, despite his good acting ability, as the main character Justin Powers isn’t the most likeable hero, in fact he’s pretty unappealing for the most part. The rest of the cast, which were mostly veteran actors, turn in some good solid performances. A little Star Trek trivia, fans should know this but in case you didn’t, some of this films’ cast, Hunter, Lormer and Robert Phillips were in the pilot episode, called The Cage.

The action and suspense is pretty minimal until the climax, but the film is still is solid entertainment. Just as was the case with Cyborg 2087, I’d call Dimension 5 mediocre. It’s probably a little less than mediocre due to the silly plot and bad tongue in cheek humor. Kino Lorber has released far better films, but there is a fan base for every title so I gladly urge them to continue to release films, be it all-time classics or from the lower tier.

Audio/Video (4/5)

Dimension 5 is presented by Kino Lorber in 1080p with an MPEG-4 AVC encode with a newly remastered 4K scan. The film to say the least looks marvelous. Colors look quite sharp with excellent details. The characters and scenery have great depth and textures. Reds look really strong here. Flesh tones look authentic. Despite it looking super sharp and clear, it still retains its filmic appearance

Kino Lorber once again uses English 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio for this release and again it’s really good. Music, dialog and gunshots all come in loud and clear. As usual, music and action sounds come off as most aggressive.

Extras (1.5/5)

An audio commentary by Videodrome (Gideon Kennedy, Matt Owensby and John Robinson) and a gallery of trailers is all this release gets. It’s still better than nothing at all.

Overall (3.5/5)

More of a crime/espionage film than science fiction, Dimension 5 is a pretty entertaining film, looking stunning in HD. Definitely worth a look!