Civil War is an ambitious film that juggles a lot of characters and emotions and impressively handles them all.

Set one year after Avengers: Age of Ultron, the film opens with world governments demanding the Avengers submit to oversight from the United Nations. Tired of collateral damage from battling villains, they want accountability. The Avengers themselves are divided on whether they should give into this demand, with Iron Man (Robert Downing Jr.) saying yes and Captain America (Chris Evans) refusing. As events spin out of control, everyone needs to pick a side.

The pacing of the movie is perhaps most praise-worthy. The film takes time with the set-up before the fighting begins. This makes for a long movie (about two and a half hours), but it uses the time well, fully fleshing out the moral problems on each side and emotional engagement with characters as they are pitted against each other. It makes sure to show how both sides genuinely believe they are right. That makes it hurt all the more when the fighting breaks out.

That being said, the super fights were everything I could have hoped for. Watching the heroes throw down against each other is epic. The payoff is well worth the set-up.

Civil War makes a good effort to be a self-contained story and not rely too much on the audience being familiar with Marvel’s other projects, such as Agents of Shield, and having seen every previous film. It does require attentive viewing though, with all the characters and story threads it has going. The new characters introduced don’t get much time to develop.

Overall, this Marvel film is much more serious than the previous ones. The jokes are still there, but don’t expect the same level of comedy as Antman or Guardians of the Galaxy. Thematically, it’s a darker and sadder story than the rest have been. Despite that, I think it may be my favorite out of the Marvel movies. There are no winners this time around.

Evans and Downy do most of the emotional heavy lifting and do it well. Despite the large cast, this really is their movie, and both actors shine. Jeremy Renner and Scarlett Johansson also stand out in their scenes.

Captain America: Civil War is a great film. I think it really raised the level for comic-book movies. Comic-book lovers, if you haven’t already, treat yourself after finals.