Let your guard down and accept Tom Holland. He was hardly going to emulate Tobey Maguire’s appeal as the web weaving crime fighter. Then again, Spider-Man: Homecoming cleverly balances home life with nocturnal adventures. Six writers including Jonathan Goldstein tie this plot into the existing Avengers mythology, and it works.

Despite an awkward start where Peter Parker (Holland) documents a fan-boy trip on his camera, this blockbuster delivers. Frankly, my expectations were scaled down, virtually non-existent. Yet I found many things to like, including a fabulous twist. Even the occasional “Oops!” or “Look out!” slipped my lips.

I could describe the narrative but where’s the fun in that? Elsewhere, Michael Keaton pulls ten G’s as super-villain Vulture. His response to vaporizing someone by mistake contains this little inspiration, “I thought this was the anti-gravity gun.” Meanwhile, the funniest moment involved Spidey trying to intimidate a suspect using the Enhanced Interrogation Mode. Thought I’d never stop laughing.

Finally, the word on Michael Giacchino’s score seems overwhelmingly positive. No inappropriate synthesizers here, for Giacchino unleashes the full creativity behind a gifted orchestra. As such, Spider-Man: Homecoming makes a cool companion to his Jupiter Ascending opus.  

(Released by Columbia Pictures and rated "PG-13" for sci-fi action violence, some language and brief suggestive comments.)

For more information about this film, go to the IMDb or Rotten Tomatoes website.