AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR Review — Thanos Is Hilarious, the Quips Don’t Stop Coming, Actually You Know What Fuck This Whole Franchise

[SPOILER ALERT: Read at your own peril.]

The trailers may have sold Avengers: Infinity War as the thrilling conclusion to a decade-long franchise, with operatic grandeur and terrifying life-or-death stakes, but audiences will be in for a shock. Nearly every line from the film’s all-powerful villain Thanos is a gut-busting quip, and actually you know what, I’m sick of this bullshit by now.

The tone is set right away when Thanos first appears, warping onto planet Earth about to throw down with our heroes. “Is it the lines on my face?” He says, cutting into the dramatic silence as Captain America, Hulk and Black Widow stand before him. “I cut myself shaving.”

Shortly thereafter, Thanos descends on Wakanda, literally telling Black Panther to his face “#KillmongerWasRight.” It scored a laugh and I’m ready to drown in a fucking bucket of popcorn.

The last 10 years. It’s all been the most expensive sitcom of all time. Only instead of DVRing them and promising to get around to watching them, I pay $20 to get a whiff of Thanos’ buttcheeks in 4DX.

Oh, you read it correctly. Thanos farts the Avengers theme right as they all assemble for the first time. It’s hilarious and just what the character needed, after years of only being defined by his lame quest for MacGuffins, and also I want to walk in a straight line into the ocean. Marvel did it again, this is what comic book movies should be, I feel like I’m living in the last days of cinema.

A huge source of gags comes from Thanos’ obsession with wiping out exactly half of the universe — a seemingly brutal quest for “balance” that results in some adorably quirky tangents. For example, in a flashback Thanos spends a while asking Gamora how he should balance out the band Haim when it’s three sisters (“Do I take away one-and-a-half of Haim? Which half of which Haim? Gamora, please pay attention”) and we’re all laughing, fuck you Marvel, we’re laughing, eat shit.

Once the evil plan is underway and half of Earth starts getting destroyed, there’s a blink-and-you-miss-it shot of a combination Taco Bell / Pizza Hut getting blown in half, leaving only the Taco Bell. Why does this count as balancing out the universe? Wouldn’t it make more sense to destroy half of each restaurant? It’s not like Ultron’s weird evil plan made any damn sense in the last Avengers movie, but at least we all had fun unmemorable chuckles over James Spader’s quips, and that’s all that matters when we line up for our bi-annual appointment Theater Television.

I love you Marvel. Inject Phase 4 directly into my veins and wake me up from my coma when Disney buys Warner Brothers too.