Teen superhero lends fresh perspective to the Marvel Universe in Spider-Man: Homecoming

REVIEW: Tom Holland has youth on his side in Spider-Man: Homecoming — and Michael Keaton knifing him in the back.

TO survive in an increasingly crowded superhero universe, any newcomer must carve out his or her own particular niche.

Peter Parker (Tom Holland) employs his relative youthfulness to good effect in Spider-Man: Homecoming.

The 15-year-old protagonist’s fresh, unaffected perspective reinvigorates the second reboot of the popular franchise.

Since Holland’s Parker is convincingly living the experience for the first time, so are we.

It’s an artfully artless performance that acknowledges Holland’s predecessors, Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield, while making the role his own.

The humour, too, feels natural and unforced.

Tom Holland in a scene from Spider-Man: Homecoming.

Spider-Man: Homecoming doesn’t so much reimagine the arachnid superhero as reposition him — in a grassroots fantasy that’s of its time but is also classically timeless.

He’s an ordinary teenager with extraordinary powers (which include “disappearing” his baggy boxer shorts underneath Spidey’s spray-on suit).

Parker’s starstruck video diary of his first Avengers training encounter is effective. (Thankfully, the filmmakers also know when to retire the potentially grating narrative device.)

Back at school, he is barely able to concentrate on his lessons. He cancels his extra-curricular activities to be available for an Avengers’ call.

When it doesn’t eventuate, Parker takes matters into his own hands, chasing down bag snatchers, pinching petty thieves.

Egged on by his equally nerdy best mate, Parker even contemplates using his new alter ego to impress the girl (Laura Harrier).

Spidey is an L-Plated superhero. Peter has about as many hours up as a man.

Iron Man director Jon Favreau has a lot of fun with the role of the curmudgeonly Happy Hogan, appointed by Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) as Spidey’s keeper.

Gwyneth Paltrow makes a cameo appearance as Pepper Potts and Marisa Tomei’s Aunt May is sexier and more worldly than her saint-like predecessors (she’s also a good deal younger).

Michael Keaton channels his dark side in the new film.

Michael Keaton’s everyday villain, Vulture, however, is what gives Spider-Man: Homecoming its edge.

Adrian Toomes is the Marvel Universe’s version of those hardworking, disaffected folk across the globe who voted for Trump and Hanson and Brexit.

When the film opens, Toomes’s salvage company has won the contract to clear the rubble left in the wake of Captain America: Civil War.

He’s already invested heavily in the necessary equipment when an officious authority figure shuts him down on orders from above (Stark Enterprises, it seems, has flexed its muscle on the basis of national security — in the wrong hands, the alien weapons would be extremely dangerous.)

Toomes isn’t interested in world domination. He just wants to provide a comfortable existence for himself and his family — but he’ll do whatever it takes to make that happen.

A split-down-the-middle Staten Island ferry, a lift-shaft rescue atop the Washington Monument and a high-altitude fight/crash sequence ... action fans won’t be disappointed by Homecoming’s heart-stopping set pieces.

But it’s the relationship between Spidey and Vulture that keeps the film afloat.

S pider-Man: Homecoming opens on Thursday.

SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING

Three and a half stars

Director Jon Watts

Starring Tom Holland, Michael Keaton, Robert Downey Jr

Rating M

Running time 133 minutes

Verdict: The suits fits