Thor: The Dark World (12A)
Directed by Alan Taylor
Three stars

Hollywood couldn’t have set the scene better. As St Jude stormed through Britain the press launch of Thor was accompanied by rain and thunder.

It was totally appropriate weather for this comic caper combining a silly saga with a fairground ride that carries you from Asgaard to Midgard — lovely London — through all the Nine Realms aboard an intergalactic wormhole.

If you haven’t a clue about sagas, just hold on to the fact that this one conforms with mythical stereotype, with two rival sons epitomising good and evil and a woman in the mix to stir things up.

The battle in Thor is to defeat those who wish to return us to the Dark World and the film opens in Asgaard some two years since Thor has been getting some human comfort from the brainy Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), a strikingly handsome woman.

Thor is bashing up lots of baddies with Loki — Tom Huddleston in camp mode — and upsetting his father Odin (Antony Hopkins) and mother Frigge (Rene Russo). Finally, he’s confined to a Star Trek-like prison.

Back in dear old Blighty, astrophysics professor Foster is looking for our hero and accidentally releases a swirling brown substance that resembles the results of ingesting a laxative.

Such is its power, it attracts the attention of the evil Malekith (Christopher Eccleston) who, along with his dark elves and some bone-crushers, seeks its power to destroy the Nine Realms.

Why these guys want to destroy everything in what appears to be an act of collective suicide is beyond me.

But not to worry, the incredible action scenes are spiced up by some humour, like Loki lampooning Captain America by “irritating Earthy chums” and the chap with his hammer asking the way to Greenwich on the Jubilee line. Yes, we do hear “Mind the gap” on the soundtrack.

The human dimension is allowed to put in its twopenneth as Jane’s quirky assistant (Darcy Lewis) has to employ an eccentric scientist (Stellan Skarsgard) to escape Broadmoor.

And we do see our mullet-headed hero having to suffer some before the battle that sees he and his chums demolish the demons.

The pity is that they almost demolish Greenwich in the process — it’s on the intergalactic axis along with other notable landmarks — rather than the banal bankers’ box on Canary Wharf opposite.

But wait, it’s not ended yet. There’s two, yes two, trailers at the end of the long credits that honour the skills of the great CGI artisans who make these films possible.