This is the second movie to star Tom Holland as Spider-Man in this incarnation (after “Captain America: Civil War”). Both the superhero and his high-school-student alter-ego (or is it the other way around? That’s another thing I can be hazy on) Peter Parker, are presented at their most awkwardly adolescent. In the timeline of the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe), “Spider-Man: Homecoming” begins directly after Spider-Man’s participation in a superhero gang fight in 2016’s “Civil War.” But the movie itself begins eight years prior to that, in the aftermath of Loki unleashing the Chitauri, which trashed much of NYC and the Avengers’ sleek headquarters in 2012’s “The Avengers.” (That’s a 2012 movie, and it’s only 2017 now, but don’t look at me, I’m just going by the on-screen texts.) In the wreck of the Avengers’ HQ, Michael Keaton’s hard-working salvage dude Adrian Toomes is showing a colleague a drawing of the Avengers scrawled by Toomes’ own ten-year-old child. Those in the audience with a familiarity with possibly fake Chekhov quotes will recognize this as the gun on the mantelpiece in Act One that is obliged to go off in Act Three, and by Odin, off it does indeed go, but it’s a long way from Act One to Act Three. Soon Toomes and his crew are kicked off the site by an officious Tyne Daly and it’s revealed that Tony Stark is ostensibly self-dealing by heading a government clean-up crew to handle the superhero mess. To give credit to the six screenwriters on this movie, the oodles of rather convoluted plot detail are relatively clear even if you’re not super-paying-attention.

“Spider-Man: Homecoming” sees Peter Parker being shunted aside by his adult mentors Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau) to tackle the more down-to-earth challenges of high school on his own. These include Parker’s pushy best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon), who wants to know all about Peter’s “internship” at Stark Enterprises; the High School Academic Decathlon (College Bowl for high schoolers, that is), whose captain Liz (Laura Harrier) Peter has a major crush on; and Peter’s guardian Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) from whom Peter must hide his amateur crime-fighting activities as Spider Man, and protect from the possibly wayward affections of a local sandwich shop manager.

This version of Peter Parker is less cocky than the prior incarnations of recent years. He is also rather whiny a lot of he time. The Peter Parker I grew up with was agonizingly tetchy, but he didn’t hunch over like a weasel whenever he had to get out of a social situation to go fight crime. While Holland hunches over with sincerity and skill, I have to admit I am not enthralled by this variation on the teen superhero’s alter-ego (I don’t think I got it right this time either). Peter Parker as nerd, I can roll with; Peter Parker as dork, not so much.