I was so pumped for Captain America: Civil War, I truly was. I am a gigantic comic book nerd and movie buff, so I was really looking forward to both a good movie and an accurate representation of how things played out in the comics. Oh, boy how was I wrong.

Not only did they stray pretty far from the comics (which I won’t get into today), but the plot was stale and the characters were lifeless. Everyone was based off of a stereotypical action movie character, with no growth from the thirteen movies, four television series, five short films, and twenty-two comic books released in the series. If those all hadn’t existed, Civil War would’ve been perfectly vague and I couldn’t blame the movie for lack of character depth or lack of a meaningful plot due to the fact it had nothing to back itself on. However, through hordes and hordes of media being shoved down our throats, I would’ve expected at least some throwback to the originals and continue the snowball affect of Iron Man’s crippling alcoholism and family troubles, or Captain America getting adjusted to modern day society and dealing with the deaths of everyone he held dear.

There were a million places the filmmakers could’ve placed this. Instead, you had a regular action movie that could’ve been so much more. I was so sad to see that this thing I had waited for since August turn out to be another cash cow used by Disney, instead of a story-driven clash between brothers.

Civil War failed in characterizing major characters and left the plot solely based on action and stubborn arguing. Robert Downey Jr. (Tony Stark) and Chris Evans (Steve Rogers) both had no life to their characters, with Tony Stark having no motivation, besides a singular person mentioned in the beginning, and Steve Rogers’ motivation is just being Bucky Barnes’ (Sebastian Stan) friend from 100 years ago. It makes no sense, even in a universe with a scrawny guy turning into a rampaging monster.

The movie doesn’t make sense, in the human aspect more than a superhuman aspect. I’m not nitpicking about superheroes, but I’m nitpicking how nobody acted like a normal person when they were doing normal person thing. As characters, nobody in the movie listened to one another and instead had a cast of many stubborn characters, unlike real life, where people are far more flexible. It could’ve been more dramatic and more story driven, but was just loosely tied together with misplaced cameos and high budget action.

In my opinion, the biggest flaw was the trio of Scott Lang/Ant-Man (Paul Rudd), Spiderman (Tom Holland), and Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman), all of whom were amazing characters with amazing backstories but were not fully fleshed out. Rudd acted as comic relief during the entire ten minutes he was in, Holland was just characterized as a random kid who shows up for 15 minutes, and Boseman acted as a angry prince. We have no idea how and why each of them are powerful or are even relevant to the story (with the exception of Rudd) and the characters feel unfulfilled as both characters and story elements.

The movie didn’t have any consistent tone, theme, or common enemy to fight against. The filmmakers were constantly cracking jokes or using comic timing right after a serious fight scene. If I wanted a funny superhero movie, I’d watch Deadpool or Ant-Man, and if I wanted a serious movie, I’d watch Batman V Superman or an X-Men movie. A conglomeration of these two tones ends up in a mess where there’s no focus.

Ant-Man and Black Panther are the biggest example of this. You have Rudd, whose character was hilarious and relatable in his standalone movie directed by Edgar Wright. Wright did an amazing job setting up gags and having some comedy besides, “Oops, I fell.” He achieved that while having some tension within the plot. I liked that. Then we have Black Panther, Marvel’s grittiest character to date, a Prince avenging his father who died unjustly. I personally think it could be a great film. Now put them together. No, no, that’s a horrible movie, which has many contradicting themes and tones. It’s an abomination. That is the problem with Civil War.

Civil War wasn’t all the horrible—I’m not a complete monster who rips apart movies. If you analyze the movie, it seems bad, but personally, I actually enjoyed the movie. I grew up on superhero movies with Tobey Maguire’s Spiderman, and it has always remained one of my favorite movies and portrayal of a character. Even though the subsequent movies were absolute trash, it brought me back to a time where I was younger and had a passion for exploring. Holland’s Spiderman brings that feeling back while the older part of me enjoys the idea of brothers against one another, with Downey and Evans appealing to my need of conflict, of which the movie had plenty. The movie had so much potential and didn’t meet up to that, but still ended up being a piece I enjoyed. 6.5/10