Secret Headquarters

As we’re reminded again in Secret Headquarters, superheroes are people, too. While they’re off saving the world, perhaps they should be more worried about saving their own family.

This example of a working-class warrior trying to conceal his double life combines with a familiar case of bumbling and unscrupulous adults being outsmarted by their resourceful adolescent adversaries.

Aside from its intermittent charms, this innocuous coming-of-age fantasy stumbles under the weight of its clichés and contrivances.

Charlie (Walker Scobell) is a slightly nerdy middle-schooler dealing with the effects of a fractured family. He lives with his mother (Jessie Mueller), who is separated from Charlie’s father, Jack (Owen Wilson). Every time father and son are supposed to hang out, Jack has a work-related excuse. “You’re just a crappy dad,” Charlie laments.

Even when Charlie is invited to Jack’s house for the weekend, dad leaves suddenly for “work.” Left home alone, Charlie buddies some friends and does some snooping. That leads to the discovery of a secret passage to a high-tech Batcave-style lair in the basement.

Piecing together the obvious clues, Charlie suspects Jack is The Guard, a vigilante superhero he admires. But such a discovery is dangerous, not just because Jack’s identity could be compromised, but because a greedy executive (Michael Pena) has arrived on the scene, acting on a tip that could enable him to steal The Guard’s secrets because the do-gooder is cutting into his profits. Suddenly, it’s up to Charlie and friends to save the day.

The directing tandem of Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman (Project Power) brings visual flair to the material. However, the film can’t rescue itself from a hit-and-miss screenplay too reliant on cartoonish confrontations that unintentionally diminish the stakes.

The film is best when it remains focused on the mischievous group of ragtag spy-kid wannabes — who just happen to fit within the target demographic — before eventually becoming more detached from reality in favor of a visual effects showcase. In the process, the father-son dynamics as its core are lost in the chaos.

Kids might identify with Charlie’s social awkwardness and self-discovery, not to mention his fascination with cool gadgets. Scobell (The Adam Project) leads an endearing young cast.

It struggles to find a consistent tone and lacks a compelling villain. Amid the glut of superhero sagas, Secret Headquarters winds up as generic as its title.

Rated PG, 103 minutes.