Thor: The Dark World, review 3D, 12A cert, 112 min. Dir: Alan Taylor. STarring: Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins, Stellan Skarsgård, Rene Russo, Christopher Eccleston, Idris Elba Instead, easily the most alarming sight in it is 62-year-old Stellan Skarsgård running naked around Stonehenge. The movie needed more grandeur and less dim attitude - above all, it needed a vision. Entrusted to director Alan Taylor, best-known for multiple episodes of The Sopranos, Mad Men and Game of Thrones, it feels entirely made by committee - the definition of house style, without a personal stamp in sight. However we want to square that reasoning with the present film's flabby intrigue and rote, mechanical feel, there are still flashes here of why we're rooting for Thor, perhaps even above his Marvel stable-mates Iron Man and Captain America (though not as much as the Hulk). Chris Hemsworth, now so vast of shoulder it's a wonder he doesn't topple over, could hardly be better cast. His hearty charisma is a frequent relief, whether we're cross-cutting to generic strafing attacks on Asgard, or to Natalie Portman, whose astrophysicist Jane Foster remains Marvel's least useful or credible character. Here, when the screenwriters can't think of anything better for Jane to do, they just have her faint repeatedly. She's been waiting on Earth for two years for some news of her blond, warhammer-wielding toyboy. "Wars were raging, marauders were pillaging," he offers her. "As excuses go, it's not terrible," she concedes. Thor's nemesis on this outing is not his incarcerated brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston), but the Dark Elves of Svartalfheim, who are just as Tolkien-goes-galactic as they sound, if a bit less enjoyable, and are led by a scowling chap called Malekith the Accursed (Christopher Eccleston). Half the movie is spent locating a wormhole which connects Asgard with tourist attractions in the east of London. There's quite a funny bit with Thor and Malekith sliding down the Gherkin. The job of explaining everything falls to Anthony Hopkins's Odin - a good bellower in the first movie, but now visibly bored, perhaps because he's essentially stuck playing a big old Welsh exposition machine. He walks into one scene barking, "My words are mere noises to you that you ignore them completely?" - well, the temptation is there. It's actually sad how many of the first Thor's assets get garbled in the mix. Trapping Loki, God of Mischief in a transparent cage for 80 per cent of your movie isn't fair on him, the constrained Hiddleston, or the audience, whatever Hannibal Lecter-ish masterplan he's meant to be concocting. Throw in some blatantly iffy London tube advice - three stops from Charing Cross to Greenwich on the Northern line? Good luck with that! - and you have a confidence-lacking movie, taking shortcuts that fail.