The third installment of the Captain America movie series has smashed into the box office to make a lasting impression on audiences.

Captain America: Civil War is a hero packed action film that brings to the table what the majority of Marvel’s movies lack: high stakes.

For the first time in the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) I felt as if there was something significant for our heroes to lose. In previous Marvel movies, the looming threat of a villain who wanted to destroy the Earth came off as cheesy, overplayed, and tiring. However, the personal tone and conflict in this story makes it a much more enticing story as the heroes of the MCU fight due to difference of opinion and moral code. Suddenly, the world feels much more in danger when the Avengers are fighting amongst themselves as opposed to one common, alien threat.

A large part of the movie that truly allows it to shine is the chemistry between characters, even those who are not on the same team. The different personalities of each individual allow for witty banter to bounce off each other in more fun, lighthearted scenes. But equally, when a dark and serious tone shadows over our characters, they display real, authentic emotion as they argue and fight for what they believe to be true.

Every great movie does have its flaws, and Captain America: Civil War is no exception. As seen in previous MCU movies, there is a factor of forced humor that is unnatural and at times damaging to the more serious scenes of the movie. While characters like Spider-Man and Ant-Man, who are known for their humor, pull off jokes just fine. However, when a generally serious character is implemented in a humorous scene it comes off as strange and leaves a bad taste.

Sadly, the movie also suffers from its large cast. The majority of the characters in the movie do have intriguing arcs as the narrative progresses, but there are so many of them that it often felt rushed as not enough time was spent person to person. The main antagonist of the movie suffered from this the most as the audience didn’t spend enough time with him to sympathize or care for why he was committing acts of terror. In fact despite the very realistic and fair drive that he was given, his little character depth left the audience not believing his motivation to be authentic

Overall, Captain America: Civil War pulled off an extremely difficult task of delivering a great story and utilizing each character to provide us with what is undoubtedly one of the biggest comic book movies of all time.