'The Venture Bros.: Radiant Is the Blood of the Baboon Heart' review

Twenty years in the making, the finale of The Venture Bros. had finally arrived in the form of the direct-to-video feature-length film, The Venture Bros.: Radiant Is the Blood of the Baboon Heart. 

For fans who've followed the series since its 2003 pilot debut, it's strange to even consider saying goodbye to Hank and Dean, Rusty and Brock, and their many foes, including The Monarch, 21, and Dr. Mrs. The Monarch. We've seen these characters grow from spoofs of '60s adventure-cartoon archetypes to deeply flawed and compelling heroes and villains. So, as funny and action-packed as this finale is, there's a bittersweet undercurrent as viewers grapple with what not even death or messy mergers could do: end the Venture Bros. 

What's The Venture Bros. movie about?

Radiant Is the Blood of the Baboon Heart picks up a week after the Season 7 finale, in which Hank Venture had wandered off from a hospital, "escaping" his coma after realizing his beloved brother Dean had slept with Hank's girlfriend, Sirena. Wounded emotionally from the betrayal and wounded physically in the head, Hank has shed his "skin" — meaning his Venture-brand jacket and phone — to set course for a quest of his own: to find his mother. 

Meanwhile, Dean is desperate to find Hank. Eaten up by guilt, he calls in OSI. And when former bodyguard/eternal badass Brock Samson and his team fail, Dean teams with theatrical necromancer Dr. Orpheus and Blacula hunter Jefferson Twilight to track down his MIA brother. 

The boys' father, Rusty "Doc" Venture, is less worried. After all, Hank's gotten out of deadlier circumstances, like fighting an army of science-gone-wrong experiments on an island like Dr. Moreau's. So, Rusty's focus is on the launch of a HelperPod, which could make or break Venture Industries, and which has the OG Helper in an absolute tizzy for fear of being replaced. (His beeps are very distressed!) However, while Rusty and his R&D team of Billy and White work out a few weird kinks, a new villain is on the scene, ready to give The Monarch a vicious glow-up. 

To keep light on spoilers, let's just say Mantilla pops up in the trailer, and is voiced with moxie by acclaimed actress Nina Arianda. Mantilla's going to make life very complicated for The Monarch, his second-in-command 21, and his wife, testing Sheila's allegiances to the Guild of Calamitous Intent. 

Radiant Is the Blood is a lot — and not enough. 

Within a one-hour and 23-minute runtime, creators Doc Hammer and Jackson Publick pack in loads of spectacle, including exciting action sequences, curious new locations, a flashy new smattering of friends and foes, and physical humor that's delightfully dumb — like when The Monarch tries to pull off a classic evasion move that lands him, slowly and painfully, right in front of the person he's trying to dodge. Also in the mix are childish arguments about music, superhero TV shows, and diction, showing that while these characters have been away for a few years, they're just as petty as ever. And thank goodness. We love them for all of that.

In these ways, Radiant Is the Blood of the Baboon Heart functions like the show's 2015 hour-long special, All This and Gargantua-2, which was stuffed with silliness, allusions, action, and lots of plot developments. But where that special served as a bridge to a new season, this film is tasked with tying up some major dangling threads. Among them: Who is Hank and Dean's mom? And are Rusty and The Monarch (aka Malcom Fitzcarraldo) brothers — maybe even the Venture Bros. the show is really all about? 

In many ways, Radiant Is the Blood of the Baboon Heart feels true to past finales of the series, which run their big moments in a frenzy right up to the end credits, and then after with punchy post-credit bonus scenes. (DO stay tuned past the credits!) The frantic pacing of the show was always an eccentric quirk, seemingly urging viewers to rewatch to make sure they caught every joke, every reveal, every twist. But here, because it's the last story, I pined for more space to let these major reveals sink in. After 20 years, we finally have answers to the show's most provocative questions — including the meaning of this movie's bizarre title. But these revelations hit in a final act where so much is going on that it's hard to process, much less appreciate, all that's unfolding. 

Also vexing in this vein is the hastily concluded arc of Arianda's new villainess, who has a Miley Cyrus swagger, a mind-blowing array of powers and tech, and a backstory that's a retcon so deep it's classic Venture Bros. While Arianda's enthusiasm and the animator's character design make the newly revealed Mantilla a total delight, it's frustrating realizing how the shift from a plotted Season 8 to one movie might have clipped her wings before she could really soar.  

Is Radiant Is the Blood of the Baboon Heart a proper sendoff for The Venture Bros.?

Perhaps it was impossible to make a movie that would totally please fans of this long-running, long-obsessed-over series. Not only because we are not a monolith with cogent goals for this finale, not only because we are an old-school fandom equipped for waiting years for a new season, but also because we don't ever really want to say goodbye, do we? 

Since the first time Hank and Dean were resurrected in Season 2, the door seemed like it couldn't stay closed on The Venture Bros. And while many other adult-aimed animated shows came and went, while Hammer and Publick lamented publicly about the hardships of production, while the HBO Max/Discovery merger killed projects and erased others from existence, The Venture Bros. endured to make one final bow.

What Hammer and Publick built here is ardently realized, bringing in fresh thrills, like Jefferson battling New Jack Blaculas — including one who has major Eddie Murphy vibes — and a callback to the dearly departed Jonas's Voltron moment. They brought in a new villain who feels familiar yet unique and exhilarating. They pushed the brothers to new terrain, both geographically and psychologically. And they gave us a couple of moments between The Monarch and Doc that were truly worth the 20-year wait. It's the kind of gift in finale that many fandoms don't get. And yet…I want more. 

To everything, there is a season and all that. But whether this was their intention or not, Hammer and Publick gave us a final chapter that answers the show's biggest questions, but also leaves room for so many more stories to be told. The door doesn't feel closed, and yet Hank and Dean may never come through it again. 

The Venture Bros.: Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart will be released on July 21 on digital and July 25 on Blu-ray.