I recall watching "Quantum of Solace," the 007 movie directed by Marc Forster, and thinking, "This man should never have been put in charge of an action movie." A fine director of art-house fare such as "Finding Neverland" or "The Kite Runner," Forster handled his cherry chase scene — always a signature moment in the Bond movies — by filming and cutting it as an incomprehensible blur.
Despite "Quantum" being the least successful of the Daniel Craig 007 movies, Forster is back doing action again, this time with Brad Pitt in the global-zombie-apocalypse blockbuster "World War Z," and it would appear he hasn't learned much in the interim. This film features sprinting zombies — as opposed to the slow, lumbering ones — and while there are many panic-action scenes of Pitt and friends frantically scurrying to avoid their ravenous clutches, you'd be hard-pressed to say what's going on in most of them.
Forster's visual style is nothing but a series of blurry, lurching handheld camera shots, which make you feel like some really fast stuff is happening, but with no idea to whom or why. Narrative coherence and the precision of clean, storyboarded sequences — essential to creating a clear sense of peril and how to overcome it — are thrown aside for sheer sensation, motion removed from context. Then again, perhaps I should be shifting the blame onto editor Roger Barton: whenever you see a hyper-edited blur posing as a movie, it's a safe bet that the name of this hack — best known for the "Transformers" series — will be in the credits.