I've seen all of MCUs but I've never considered them films. More of like a series of product/ TV episodes with great production value.

I liked the first Iron Man as its a complete film of its own and structurally sets the ultimate MCU formula that pretty much continue to work with all other movies. I also liked Guardians of the Galaxy which I thought really differed itself from what people think Marvel should be. That being said I've always thought Feige was a genius in the fact that he doesn't set out to do "comic book" movies but rather playing with different genres within the same universe.

Yet Captain America: Civil War is a totally different animal. It's the ultimate Marvel movie that geeks like myself dream of in their head ever since they announced plan to do shared universe back in 2009.

Ensemble movies are hard to pull off strictly from a storytelling perspective. Balancing characters, keeping each motivation simple and understandable, tonally fresh, thematically focused, and with just right amount of pace that keeps the momentum going and in the case of of this one: digging deeper into existing characters AND introducing brand new ICONIC ones without ruining the whole narrative. Civil War actually does all of them but never forgets to keep it fun and action-packed enough in the process.

Black Panther is a classic yet niche character in the universe. But they amount of care that went into introducing and forging him into this already crowded ensemble is handled with great care and details. Spiderman is on a mission as well but the Russo brothers spends enough time with him to bring the character, along with his origin and new background almost seamlessly and with great humor into the MCU. All of these make the airport smackdown scene all the more memorable as we can easily root for all of the characters at their most classic selves.

Perhaps the most difficult achievement in all of this is that with all the fireworks at play and character motivations, Cap is still at the very core of the story. This is after all, a Captain America movie and they never seize to remind you of that as it starts and end with his arc completed and emotionally satisfying.

It just doesn't get better than this. So stop reading now and get a ticket.