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

The Venture Bros.: Radiant Is the Blood of the Baboon Heart is a 2023 American direct-to-video adult animated science fiction action adventure film based on the Adult Swim animated series The Venture Bros., where it serves as the series finale. The film is directed and co-written by the series creator Jackson Publick and writer Doc Hammer, who serves as the film's executive producers and features the voices of the show's returning principal cast, James Urbaniak, Patrick Warburton, Michael Sinterniklaas, Publick and Hammer. The film centers on a nationwide manhunt for Hank Venture, which leads to a coming darkness from the past that involves the Venture Family, the Guild, and the Monarch themselves.
Originally envisioned as a potential eighth season of the series, the film is the second of Adult Swim's line of straight-to-video movies after Aqua Teen Forever: Plantasm, and was released by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment on digital on July 21, 2023 and Blu-ray on July 25, 2023, followed by its availability on Max (known during the film's production as HBO Max) 90 days later.
==Plot==
Beginning shortly after the events of The Saphrax Protocol, Dr (Rusty) Venture, his son Dean Venture, Brock Sampson and the O.S.I are on the search for Hank Venture. They track Hank's V-Phone to an alley in Queens. Shortly after discovering that Hank has given away his phone, Brock and the O.S.I. are called to address an unsanctioned super powered battle, or "arching", several blocks away.
At the same time, Malcolm Fitzgerald (The Mighty Monarch) spies on Ven-Tech tower with his sidekick henchman 21 (Gary). Despite formal recognition of his villainous prowess by the Guild of Calamitous Intent, it's revealed that the Monarch is the blood relation of Rusty. Consequently he's disqualified from arching his nemesis. The Monarch's wife and Guild councilwoman Dr. Mrs. the Monarch (Sheila) attempts to collect a cheek swab from Rusty to determine the precise nature of their relation through DNA Analysis. The Guild Council hold a meeting to discuss the illegal arching, and identify the antagonist as Brick Frog. He was a perennially low-ranking Guild villain who recently quit. The Council assigns Red Death and Sheila to the solve the case of where his new power comes from.
Meanwhile, at Ven-Tech, Rusty and the O.S.I. decide Hank was in no real danger and call off the search. Dean, still driven by guilt for having an affair with Hank's girlfriend Sirena, seeks support from Dr. Orpheus. Orpheus finds the spiritual essence of remorse contained within a letter Dean wrote for Hank while he was still in a coma, and use it to envision of Hank's location. The vision is unclear, but provides them enough information to pursue him. Back at Ven-Tech, senior inventors Billy Quizboy and Pete White inform Rusty that their new flagship product, the H.E.L.P.eR. Pod, is flawed. While playing music it levitates and crashes when the audio is turned off. To avoid injury lawsuits, Billy cautions that they delay the launch. Fearing bankruptcy without a successful launch, Rusty insists on carrying on as scheduled and assigns Billy and Pete to fix it.
While waiting for the PATH train with the Monarch, Gary notices a villainess and introduces himself. She reveals herself to be Mantilla: founder of the new villain collective A.R.C.H. and invites them to contact her. After her spectacular exit Gary learns from the Monarch that they used to date. She tracks them to their home-cum-lair by hacking Gary's phone when he scans the QR code on the back of her business card. Mantilla offers the Monarch and Gary a tour of A.R.C.H. The organization proves to be state-of-the-art, and with global reach, supplying their members with the means to destroy their protagonist rivals. The Monarch and Gary agree to use their services. At Brick Frog's crime scene, Shore Leave reviews key details with Sheila. Brick Frog has slain his nemesis, Dr. Dale. who was working on an "indestructible" building substance. Red Death sneaks away with a phone from one of the deceased A.R.C.H. acolytes and their hand for potential biometric locks.
Meanwhile, in a sleeper car Hank recounts the journey of the past few days from his perspective. He quests to find his identity and process his jilting. First he sheds his belongings in Queens, then he attempts to leave New York City via boat. When this fails he settles for a freight train. He remembers his family fortune and books a sleeper car to Denver near the old Venture compound. Aboard the car, Hank consults with several of his past alternate identities: villain Enrico Matassa, a Detective, the Bat (himself in a cape and Batman mask), and henchman Russian Guyovitch. They decide that his problem with women stem from his birth mother abandoning him and so they resolve to find her. Hank arrives at the compound. Dismayed, he fantasizes about the campus in his youth. The fantasy turns when he remembers Dean telling him "We don't have a mom Hank" and he flees the ruin but not before remembering his coma dream. In the dream, the Action Man gives Hank the name "Bobbi St. Simone". Dermott Fictel, A low ranking O.S.I. agent assigned to guard the compound and former friend of Hank's, discovers him and invites him back to his home. They research Bobbi and find out she was a small-time actress in the late 1960s, and has gone on to run an animal sanctuary nearby for creatures modified by superscience.
Jefferson, Orpheus, and Dean arrive in Chicago shortly after dusk. They sleep in an abandoned warehouse that doubles as a loner protagonists' collective Jefferson once belonged to. They are soon attacked by a group of Black vampires self-styled as the Blood Brothers. Though Jefferson is able to repel them and aid their escape, Dean is apparently bitten in the fracas.
The Monarch and Gary, now with A.R.C.H. tech, begin breaking into the Ven-Tech tower. After using a tank-mounted laser that changes the company's logo on the building to the Monarch's, the two make their way inside. Mantilla watches them from the side-lines, recalls their tank and activates all H.E.L.P.eR. Pods. The Pods levitate throughout the building, their combined efforts tear the tower off its foundations and carry it skyward. Shore Leave, Brock, and Red Death invite Sheila to the now cleaned-out A.R.C.H. headquarters. They reveal incriminating (and fraudulent) evidence of her involvement with A.R.C.H. decrypted from the acolyte's phone. Knowing the deception, but tied by bureaucracy, the others stage Sheila's escape from custody. She jumps out a nearby window, and lands on Red Death's steed "Daisy". He takes her to Mantilla's apartment to finish their mission. Brock and the O.S.I. team learn of the flying skyscraper and alert an oblivious Rusty. Billy calls to insist that Rusty and head of security Sgt. Hatred stay behind to prevent the skyscraper from landing from space onto Manhattan which would likely destroy the city. The Monarch and Gary reveal themselves and beg Rusty to take them back to Earth.
In Colorado, Dean and company confront Dermott as to Hank's whereabouts. Dean becomes physically aggressive, and fears that his transformation into a vampire is quickening. At Bobbi's animal sanctuary Caring Hands, Hank scales a locked gate and confronts Bobbi on her absence. Seeming disappointed, she begins to explain her story. While working on a film set as a disappearing woman, Bobbi caught the eye of Rusty's father, Jonas Venture Sr. who's able to turn her body completely invisible, and soon seduces her. The next day, she startles a young Rusty Venture, and he is smitten. She finds her new invisibility powers difficult to control and her acting career stagnates. When she turns to Jonas to cure her, he coerces her to become a deep cover O.S.I. agent within the Guild of Calamitous Intent. Her powers make her a successful super-thief, and she soon catches the eye of the then Sovereign of the Guild, Force Majeure. Force Majeure and Bobbi have a daughter together, Debbie St. Simone. When the second Sovereign kills Force Majeure, Bobbi flees the guild with her daughter and seeks the aid of the now grown Rusty to remove her powers. He succeeds and Bobbie settled into the life of an animal carer. She confirms that she isn't Hank's mother, and tells him that she's told him this several times before. Each time Hank sought her out had been after he was cloned again. Unable to cope with the knowledge, he passes out and returns to Coma World. At this point Dean's party arrives. Orpheus enters Coma World with Jefferson, and successfully convinces Hank to return to the waking world, leaving his alters who are happy in the coma world behind. At the same time, Dean connects with Bobbi and several of her primate charges. Upon taking Hank's hand, Dean is forcibly transported into Coma World, and into the path of Hank's alters. They instantly turn on and beat him for cheating with Sirena, but Hank manages to save him. Orpheus returns the brothers to the real world, where they reconcile.
Meanwhile, In Mantilla's apartment, Mantilla reveals her plans to Sheila and Daisy. She is Debbie Majeure and was dissatisfied by her mother's choice to retire given her heritage. She laments the lost opportunity to work with Sheila as partners in crime and demands to know why she allowed herself to be bogged down in partnerships with feckless men. Sheila remains adamant that she chose her path and doesn't need saving. As Force Majeure's daughter, Daisy proclaims Debbie the Guild's rightful heir and kneels at her feet before being rebuked by Sheila. Debbie agrees to give up her A.R.C.H. efforts and claim to the Guild throne in exchange for sanctioned villain status and other charges cleared. Using Debbie's invisibility powers, she and Sheila sneak into Guild headquarters to overwrite the relevant records.
Aboard the O.S.I. Hover-Fortress, General Hunter Gathers advises Brock that they will be forced to shoot Ven-Tech tower if it re-enters American airspace. Brock pleads that they give Rusty more time to fix their situation. In the elevator at Ven-Tech, the Monarch demands from Rusty why he slept with Debbie. Rusty said that he never did, and only did her a favor some years ago. The Monarch relents. Hatred and H.E.L.P.eR. arrive armed with guns. They all attempt to shoot down as many of the H.E.L.P.eR. Pods as possible until the tower begins a controlled descent but they are disastrously overwhelmed by the pods' levitation powers and all but H.E.L.P.eR. manage to escape with their lives. When Debbie took her deal, she deactivated all the H.E.L.P.eR. pods at Ven-Tech Tower, which consequently plummets to Earth. Rusty, the Monarch, Gary, and Hatred stumble across a giant flying mecha in storage, Ventronic, and attempt to slow the tower's fall. Seeing this, General Gathers quickly moves the Hover-Fortress into place and assists Ventronic. The tower lands safely - coincidentally at the site of the Colorado compound, where Dean, Hank, Orpheus and Jefferson soon arrive.
The Monarch accidentally jettisons his section of the mech and lands near the foot of a statue of Jonas and young Rusty. He is impaled by Jonas' outstretched finger, and begins to bleed out. Team Venture discovers that the statue has destroyed the Monarch's liver. Ben, the scientist who originally assisted Rusty in cloning Hank and Dean, offers his assistance. Rusty provides a partial liver transplant to the Monarch, as well as a blood transfusion. The two reflect on their shared heritage in adjacent beds: they are clones of Jonas' son. The differences in the Monarch's physical traits and latent aggression are due to Jonas including baboon DNA in his design. The resulting child was given to the Blue Morpho and his wife who couldn't conceive. Sheila arrives, invisible, to comfort her husband. She confirms that the Guild will no longer stand in the way of his rivalry with Rusty, since the fact of his shared genetic heritage with his nemesis has the makings of legend. Dean confronts Rusty on who his true mother is. He reassures Dean that the one who gave birth to him loves him. He's interrupted by Sheila pulling his pants down in front of the group. The Monarch declares victory in the name of his hatred for Rusty yet struggles to finish his speech in his weakened state, and demands that someone call him an Uber.
In an after-credits scene, a younger Rusty is seen working at a desk in his lab while H.E.L.P.eR. sings to himself. Rusty turns to H.E.L.P.eR., revealing Hank and Dean as babies in an artificial womb he's wearing.
==Cast==
*James Urbaniak as Dr. Thaddeus "Rusty" Venture, Phantom Limb
*Patrick Warburton as Brock Samson
*Michael Sinterniklaas as Dean Venture
*Chris McCulloch as Hank Venture, The Monarch, Sgt. Hatred, Pete White, Gen. Hunter Gathers, H.E.L.P.eR., Colonel Gentleman, The Action Man, The Pirate Captain, Dragoon, Dr. Z, Watch
*Doc Hammer as Dr. Mrs. The Monarch, Henchman 21, Billy Quizboy, Dermott, Shore Leave, Red Mantle, Ward
*Nina Arianda as Mantilla
*Clancy Brown as Red Death
*John Hodgman as Snoopy
*Hal Lublin as Clayton
*Jane Lynch as Bobbi St. Simone
*Charles Parnell as Jefferson Twilight
*Jay Pharoah as Nuno Blood
*Steven Rattazzi as Dr. Orpheus
*J.K. Simmons as Ben
*Dana Snyder as The Alchemist
Category:Movies
Category:2023 films