'Captain America: Civil War' has me surrendering to Marvel

Just when I ready to start dismissing Marvel movie as tired and predictable, along comes Captain America: Civil War like a breath of fresh air, and lo and behold, my faith in these genre movies has been restored.

I am not ready to declare it the best Marvel movie ever; it's hard to compare with the fizzy fun and excitement that 2008's Iron Man provided when it kickstarted this cycle of films, or 2012's The Avengers, which brought everything full circle.

Still, it is easily one of the best offerings of this universe to date, and it succeeds by making the common sense decision to focus on concocting a strong, coherent story first and then worrying about fan service later.

I am not familiar with the Civil War plotline from the comic books, and I couldn't care less about that. What I did want was a strong action movie that was both entertaining and interesting, and boy did this film deliver.

Building off of the ominous tone and existential dread of the last Captain America film (The Winter Soldier), this new film presents a totally plausible but not heavy handed issue -- should superheroes be kept in check? Especially when their battling unintentionally costs innocent lives.

Black Panther

This debate effectively splits the Avengers in two, with each side having sympathetic motivations behind their actions. With Captain America, he's clinging to the last real shred of his former life (his corrupted best friend Bucky). On the other side, there's Iron Man (a flawless Robert Downey Jr., who seems reinvigorated here) who is sick and tired of his good deeds leading to disaster.

Instead of just pitting the characters against each other in mindless punch-fests, the filmmakers (Joe and Anthony Russo) adeptly manipulate loyalties, supply backstory and motivation, without becoming too tedious.

Then, when the action set pieces kick in, they are not just riveting visually but they have real heart, too. The action is also shot and framed beautifully, so that while a scene may seem chaotic -- it's never hard to follow or to appreciate within the logical confines of this kind of movie.

The film even finds a way to make Spider-Man seem like a fresh and new character, despite two previous iterations in just the last fourteen years. And although I did miss the banter of Thor and The Hulk, this movie does wonders with its new characters (unlike Age of Ultron, which felt a little overstuffed).

Besides Tom Holland as the new, truly teenage Spider-Man, Chadwick Boseman nearly steals the movie as the badass Black Panther and Paul Rudd makes perhaps the most audience friendly re-appearance as Ant-Man, one of the most charming of the entire Marvel gallery.

I saw this movie with an audience of kids and adults -- and everyone had a wonderful time. And that includes my fiancee, who was pretty skeptical about the movie from the start. This is what you want out of a summer movie -- kinetic action, big laughs, engaging stories with clever dialogue.

Sure, these films lack of a certain directorial vision, which I miss. I'm worried that a remarkable talent like Ryan Coogler will be neutered when he takes the reigns of a solo Black Panther film because he -- like all directors of Marvel films -- is beholden to an ongoing arc.

But in the short term, this film by any measure is a success, and the new standard by which all modern superhero films should be held to.