Spider-Man: Homecoming

A superhero film built as a high school story. Peter is fifteen and at school. Some time ago he took part in a big fight and is waiting to be called back. His phone is always in his hand. He sends messages, gets no reply, and deals with small jobs in the neighbourhood: bicycle thieves, directions, a cash machine robbery. One night he sees strange weapons. A group of men are turning alien material collected from incident sites into weapons and selling them. From there the film is an investigation. A ferry, a monument, an aeroplane and a school dance. The best scene is a car journey. Peter goes to collect his date and the man who opens the door is the one he is looking for; there is not a single punch in it. What the narrative is interested in is not power but age: the film keeps showing Peter to be insufficient; he loses, he is frightened, and he calls for help. The other side is an ordinary man. Toomes ran a clean-up company, the work was taken from him, and that is why he turned to crime; his motive is convincing and about class. The narrative does not retell the origin. The uncle's death is never shown, and in a third adaptation that is the right decision. What sets the tone is the high school comedy of the 1980s; the school scenes are shot in that language. Tom Holland, Michael Keaton, Marisa Tomei, Jacob Batalon, Zendaya and Robert Downey Jr. are in the cast. Jon Watts directed. Who it is for: anyone who wants a small-scale, neighbourhood-level superhero film. Who it is not for: anyone looking for a standalone story; the narrative is tied to a series and keeps reminding you.