(Spoiler free, I promise!)

Had the good fortune to catch Ant-Man and the Wasp this week. Even though I’ve been a little burned out on superheroes, I enjoyed it a lot. I’ve been trying to nail down why, and I think I’ve figured it out:

The stakes are very high, but they’re also very personal—and not just for the protagonists.

This isn’t a “save the world” movie. There aren’t aliens invading or a powerful bad guy trying to conquer the world or unmake the universe.  At it’s heart, it’s about family. It’s about decisions that come back to haunt you, and how they affect the people you care about—not to mention the people you didn’t even know.

I’m not saying it isn’t action-packed. It certainly is. But it’s character-focused in an extremely refreshing way. Even the antagonist is compelling, and not just because Hannah John-Kamen is amazing (which she is, and I’ll admit I’ve been nursing a girl crush on her since Killjoys Season 1).

In the end, it’s just nice to see a superhero movie where the stakes aren’t raised to comic (pun mostly not intended) levels.

I guess you could say that with Ant-Man they’ve never been smaller.