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

The search for the missing Hank Venture leads to untold dangers and a few unexpected revelations, all while a new evil out of the past reemerges to wreak havoc on Team Venture, the Guild of Calamitous Intent, and even the marriage of the supervillain known as The Monarch and his extremely capable, and velvety-voiced wife, the former Dr. Girlfriend, now known as Dr. Mrs. The Monarch.

This film isn’t really a film, so much as it’s a longer episode of the TV show The Venture Bros., because much like the show, it’s basically the continued continuation of the continuing adventures of Dr. Rusty Venture, a third tier super-scientist and the unimpressive son of the legendary super-scientist and adventurer Dr. Jonas Venture, as well as his two overly-eager, overly-chipper, and hopelessly naive twin teen boy adventurer sons and clones, Hank and Dean, their meep-meeping robot butler Helper, and their original bodyguard, that mulleted man’s man, that renowned super soldier, that fearsome all-around badass, Brock Sampson, all of whom are backed up by a cast of weirdos like the Venture’s replacement bodyguard, the past his prime and always on the verge of another heart attack former super soldier, Sgt. Hatred, the boys’ half-brother and juvenile delinquent, Dermott Fictel, the mysterious necromancer Dr. Orpheus, who’s renting a room on the Venture compund, and his friend, the half human/half vampire killer of Blaculas known as Jefferson Twilight, not to mention Rusty’s old college roommates and unimpressive super-scientists themselves, the hydrocephalic Master Billy Quizboy and the albino Pete White, plus that salty old spymaster General Hunter Gathers, the ever-fabulous Shore Leave, and the rest of America’s highly-trained special mission Anti-Supervillain force, the O.S.I., as together they stand against the ever-present, the relentless, and the contractually obliged threat of the previously mentioned Dr. Mrs. The Monarch, along with the terrifying Red Death and his robotic hell-horse Daisy, with the power of the entire Guild of Calamitous Intent behind them, as well as The Monarch himself,  of course, with the help of his right hand man, his Henchman #21, Gary.

Also, there’s that new face on the villain scene that I mentioned too, a mysterious woman in white who can turn invisible, who also turns out to be The Monarch’s ex-girlfriend, the vengeful Mantilla.

Amongst others…

I loved it. Loved it.

Mostly, this film just reminded me of how much I love The Venture Bros. TV show, that hilarious and pop culture infused, 1960s mod-style (and 1980s windbreaker style) flavored mashup of Johnny Quest, The Hardy Boys, Scooby-doo, G.I. Joe, pulp novels, sci-fi movies, superhero comics, sometimes Tiger King, and sometimes Zardoz, as well as pretty much anything else you might want to reference, or homage, or riff on, or maybe just completely ripoff and repaint a little, because it’s awesome, and who cares because the show is awesome too, all thrown into a blender and mixed around… Honestly, I’m probably going to rewatch the whole series again now.

But what about you, the newbie, you ask?

Will this film make sense to you, if you haven’t watched the show at all? Is it a good idea to jump blindly into the deepest of narrative deep ends on what may be the final chapter of a 15 year and 7 season long labyrinthine chronicle of a world of heroes and villains, adventurers and spies, aliens, freaks, and monsters—the reluctant inheritors of legendary legacies, all of whom are related to each other somehow, or have dated each other, or are currently married now, and/or are all clones of each other—as they poorly continue a long line of proud traditions that at this point have all somewhat lost their luster? Will the story and its characters, will the constant references, action, excitement, not to mention the razor sharp, lightning-quick patter of witty barbs and in-jokes, still have the same meaning to you?

No.

No, not at all.

But I loved it, and if you’re still into the Venture Bros. after all these years, then you’ll probably love it too.