Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		3.0
Overall		4.0

The Venture Bros.: Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart Blu-ray Movie Review

Hell yeah, Brick Frog!

Reviewed by Randy Miller III July 21, 2023

Taking the Curb Your Enthusiasm route for its release strategy, Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer's The Venture Bros. finally wraps up its roughly two-decade run of just seven seasons (and a few specials) with Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart, the long-awaited direct-to-video series finale. The franchise's last appearance on disc was 2019's Season 7 collection, which somewhat dangerously crammed almost four hours of HD content onto a single dual-layered Blu-ray, and before that, Seasons 3-6. Only the first two seasons have yet to reach high-definition home video, with perhaps this Blu-ray release of Radiant is the Blood testing the capitalistic waters for an all-inclusive boxed set.

Assembled from story ideas for its planned eighth season (which was scrapped after the show's somewhat surprising cancellation announcement on September 5, 2020), the sleek but efficient 84-minute runtime of Radiant is the Blood serves as a best-case scenario for die-hard fans hoping to see loose ends get tied up. It's about as smooth-running and sleek as this chaotic, at-times riotously funny show gets, whizzing through its equal-parts simple and complex plot with energy to spare. Picking up almost exactly a week after where the above-linked Season 7 left off, Radiant is the Blood juggles multiple narratives: Hank Venture wakes from his coma after learning that his brother Dean slept with Sirena and now searches for his long-lost mother, Dean enlists the help of Order of the Triad -- and eventually, a few others -- to find him, business-minded dad Rusty is focused on developing the potentially company-saving "HelperPod" upgrade, Brock and OSI investigate a possible new supervillain, and The Monarch, as always, continues his lifelong obsession with "arching" Rusty by any means necessary, all culminating in a coda of identity revelation.

It's a lot to unpack, so newer fans can and will find themselves lost along the way; while Radiant is the Blood almost embodies the format and flow of a stand-alone story, its unyielding focus on fan-friendly narrative threads, deep-cut cameos, and other full-blooded in-jokes give off the hybrid sheen of both a final and victory lap. Regardless, anyone not as intensely fluent in The Venture Bros.' convoluted lore can still enjoy the surface of this film thanks to its reliable use of oddball humor and efficient, whip-smart dialogue. I myself came pretty late to the party but was immediately drawn towards The Venture Bros.' clear similarities to Ben Edlund's The Tick (live-action, animated, and comic), which shares a lot of DNA in regards to its general atmosphere, writing style, and even some of its creative personnel, including co-creator Christopher McCulloch and key voice actor Patrick Warburton. That, and a genetic affinity for Jonny Quest, which The Venture Bros. began as a thinly-veiled satire of before morphing into something else entirely.

As such, I really can't imagine many rabid, content-starved Venture fans being disappointed with Radiant is the Blood, as it was clearly made with the best of intentions and does a fine job of wrapping things up while adding in more than a few fan-service Easter Eggs, detours, and even a healthy dose of meta-humor aimed at those more keenly aware of the show's steady progression on its way to this final leg of the journey. Released almost a full year after Cartoon Network's first direct-to-disc animated film Aqua Teen Forever: Plantasm, the superior Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart makes Warner Bros.' new Blu-ray a send-off worth owning. (Sadly, no 4K option this time, though.)

The Venture Bros.: Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Venture Bros. has always featured a razor-sharp visual design... but it doesn't lean heavily on gradients and showy effects, and thus doesn't demand a sky-high bit rate. Yet compression issues plagued most of the show's earlier season collections, since WB habitually crammed roughly four hours of HD material onto each dual-layered disc. Unsurprisingly, then, light macro blocking and posterization have typically been a problem... but that's not the case with Radiant is the Blood, which gets the same amount of disc real estate for just over two hours of material including extras. It's happily reinforced by a more supportive bit rate this time around, one that still doesn't require sky-high numbers but routinely hovers around 25Mbps and seems largely free of those light compression-related hang-ups of yesteryear. What we get here is essentially a more optimized version of late-run seasons; The Venture Bros.' overall look hasn't really changed much in the last decade or so, aside from slightly more ambitious visual effects during key dramatic sequences. As seen in these screenshots, fine detail is quite impressive and colors are nicely represented with no signs of oversaturation or bleeding, resulting in something much closer to "near-perfect" that what we've gotten in the past. Would an optional 4K release have been icing on the cake? Sure, but I don't think anyone will be disappointed here.

The Venture Bros.: Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Likewise, the DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio mix sounds similar to previous "late-period" Venture Bros. territory including Season 7, if not slightly larger and occasionally more bombastic due to the subject matter. Yet this is still very much a dialogue-driven show with crisp and routinely active movement through the front channels, with location effects, off-screen comments, action sequences, and of course J. G. Thirlwell's always-welcome original score routinely filling out the rear areas. There's notable weight to many of the hits, explosions, and other action elements during Radiant is the Blood, which stands in contrast to an otherwise decently enveloping but purposefully-crafted soundstage that often reaches alongside or even above the levels achieved by most contemporary small-screen animated films.

Optional English, Spanish, and French subtitles are offered during the main feature only. (See below for a couple of exceptions during the on-disc bonus features, which unfortunately aren't as inclusive.)

The Venture Bros.: Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This one-disc release ships in a standard keepcase with attractive artwork and a matching slipcover; a Digital Copy code and exclusive fold-out poster replicating the cover design are also tucked snugly inside. The bonus features are somewhat minimal for a "last hurrah" Blu-ray release but all are well worth watching.

• Audio Commentary #1 - What Venture Bros. home video release would be complete without a casual, candid group chat with amicable series co-creators Jackson Publick (Christopher McCulloch) and Eric "Doc" Hammer? This enjoyable commentary runs the gamut of topics but is clearly made with die-hard fans in mind, although it does manage to touch upon more general fare including guest voice actors, the production process, highlights and regrets, the cancelled Season 8, dangling threads, questions from fans, and much more.

• Audio Commentary #2 - Hey, how about another commentary with Jackson and Doc? This one's actually more of a Q&A session where the dynamic duo answers a shit ton of additional questions written by fans in advance of this release; reportedly around 2,000 were submitted in total, with hundreds of obvious redundancies as well as many questions that were answered during the film itself. If you were one of the questioners, you'll definitely want to give this a listen from start to finish (although they're not credited by name, unfortunately).

• Hodgman and Friends (50:26) - I didn't understand this at first, but this is a mock TV interview show hosted by American author, TV/movie actor, humorist, and Venture Bros. fan John Hodgman, who sits down with -- yep, you guessed it -- Jackson and Doc for a series-spanning VB discussion about life, love, and loss.

The Venture Bros.: Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer's long-running Cartoon Network staple The Venture Bros. finally ends with Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart, a highly anticipated direct-to-video finale that wraps up most of the unceremoniously cancelled show's loose ends. It's a feature-length epic made with the best of intentions, armed with the same absurd sense of humor as its best years and, in the best possible sense of the phrase, feels like a strong extended episode. Despite the lack of a 4K option, Warner Bros.' Blu-ray serves up a terrific A/V presentation and the bonus features, though light in number, are all worth watching. Highly Recommended to die-hard fans, obviously.