There's a very small moment about one hour into Spider-Man: Homecoming where Peter Parker, about to swing off in pursuit of the Vulture, gazes longingly through a skylight at Liz, the girl of his dreams, and the rest of his school's academic decathlon team as they sneak a dip in the the hotel's pool the night before the next day's competition. This moment perfectly encapsulates what is at the heart of the best Spider-Man stories: Peter Parker's desire to just be another guy, to pursue his own happiness, clashing with what he feels is a moral obligation to be Spider-Man and save the day. No retelling of the origin and speeches extolling "power and responsibility" are necessary; the look on Peter's face in this scene as he sighs, puts on his mask, and swings off into the night tell us all we need to know.In fact, Homecoming dispenses with a lot of the material that has been tread and retread in previous Spider-Man movies. The result is a Spider-Man movie that is neither an origin story nor follow-up to a previous installment. We simply get to see Spider-Man being Spider-man and doing Spider-Man things. The filmmakers are banking on the fact that, like Superman or Batman, Spider-Man is a character whose origin is already known to the vast majority of the audience: boy bitten by spider gets spider powers, uses them for his own gain, refuses to stop a thief, thief murders his beloved Uncle Ben, "With great power yada yada yada". The result is a film that joins our hero's tale in medias res. We don't know exactly how events unfolded for this version of the character, whether the Spider that bit him was radioactive or genetically modified or how directly responsible he is for the death of his Uncle Ben (In fact, Ben's role in Peter's origin is so understood that he isn't even mentioned in the film). Instead, we hit the ground running with Spider-Man's pursuit of a group of crooks selling hi-tech, alien hybrid weapons.
The main goal with Homecoming then becomes introducing this specific iteration of Spider-Man to the world of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The title Homecoming is itself a reference to the character finally joining the MCU after having his rights tied up at Sony (a deal was worked out where Marvel Studios will produce future Spidey films and Sony will retain distribution for the character's solo outings). Some might quibble that Spider-Man doesn't get his own first installment to himself; Robert Downey Jr's Tony Stark not only designs the 'smart' spidey suit that Peter sports for most of the film but he shows up no less than 3 times to rescue, lecture, and, finally, congratulate Spider-Man. Oddly, this interaction with the larger marvel world is not something unusual to Spider-Man stories. After all, Amazing Spider-Man 1 (the character's second appearance after his debut in Amazing Fantasy 15) features Peter's unsuccessful attempt to join the Fantastic Four (not unlike his aspirations to become an Avenger in Homecoming).Also, since the filmmakers decided to avoid doing an 'origin' story, Homecoming becomes much more like the second installments of the various sub-franchises of the MCU. Iron Man 2 featured Nick Fury more prominently and introduced Black Widow and War Machine, Captain America: The Winter Soldier is just as much about Nick Fury, Black Widow, and SHIELD as it is about the titular character (and it also introduces the Falcon). Cap and Iron Man needed their first installments to themselves; they're less familiar to an audience unfamiliar with comics. They need a proper introduction before they begin interacting with the larger MCU. Spider-Man, as I have already mentioned, needs no introduction so he gets to dive right in and establish where he stands in the MCU.
And where does he stand? Kind of near the bottom as it turns out. Tom Holland's Peter Parker is younger than previous versions (15 years old). As a result, he is an inexperienced and imperfect hero. He makes mistakes. He can be impulsive and his tendency to rush in can sometimes end up creating a bigger mess than if he had simply not gotten involved. At one point, Tony Stark effectively 'grounds' him. While, in the public conscious, Spider-Man looms larger than the Avengers; in the MCU he isn't quite in the same league as the Avengers ( actually, this is also true for much of the character's history in the comics--- he didn't become a full-fledged Avenger until 2002 or so). He's not the strongest or most skilled character in the MCU, but he fights harder than anyone to stop the bad guy when he must. It's the character's vulnerability that makes him the most relatable in the Marvel (or any other) Universe. It's not that he never gets beaten, it's the fact that he never gives up. Homecoming perfectly captures this and, in one of the film's most moving sequences, pays homage to this classic moment from Amazing Spider-Man 33 (perhaps one of the most noteworthy examples of Peter's perseverance when the odds are against him):
As a stand alone film, Homecoming might not work quite as well as, say, Sam Raimi's Spider-Man. The movie depends a bit too much on MCU continuity and the audience's previous familiarity with Spider-Man. HOWEVER, the film has given us the best on-screen iteration of the character of Peter Parker/Spider-Man. Now that the character has been fully integrated into the MCU, future installments can, hopefully, dispense with the guest appearances and crossovers and give us a movie that is all Spider-Man all the time.
