Midway through “Spider-Man: Homecoming, ” there’s a sequence that revs the picture up in that buzzy spectacular “Hey, I’m watching a Marvel movie! ” way. Peter Parker ( Tom Holland) , a 15-year-old high school sophomore from Queens, is in Washington, D.C., along with a team of his fellow student brainiacs, to attend the finals of the Academic Decathlon. They’re up in the Washington Monument when a volatile alien weapon explodes, causing a crack along the top of the building’s pointy pillar and trapping the students inside the elevator.
It’s up to Peter to save them, though as Spider-Man he’s still figuring out what the heck he’s doing. In his red-and-blue spandex costume, now layered with computer intelligence and a Siri voice, he shimmies up the monument, a vertical crawl shot at dizzying angles ( as in, straight down) . He blasts some sticky web here and there and tries to kick his way through a small window ( nope, the glass is too hard) . But it’s a sticky situation. For a few dicey moments, you’re up there with him, doing just what you’re supposed to be doing at a movie like this one. You forget yourself. You escape.