In today's Guardian, Peter Bradshaw [2] offers his impressions of new sci-fi flick John Carter. Might just be me but I don't think he liked it that much:

John Carter is one of those films that is so stultifying, so oppressive and so mysteriously and interminably long that I felt as if someone had dragged me into the kitchen of my local Greggs, and was baking my head into the centre of a colossal cube of white bread. As the film went on, the loaf around my skull grew to the size of a basketball, and then a coffee table, and then an Audi. The boring and badly acted sci-fi mashup continued inexorably, and the bready blandness pressed into my nostrils, eardrums, eye sockets and mouth. I wanted to cry for help, but in bread no one can hear you scream. Finally, I clawed the doughy, gooey, tasteless mass desperately away from my mouth and screeched: "Jesus, I'm watching a pointless film about a 1860s American civil war action hero on Mars, which the inhabitants apparently call Barsoom. I can't breathe."

Last month, my colleague Jonathan Derbyshire attended the inaugural Hatchet Job of the Year Awards [3], set up to award the "author of the angriest, funniest, most trenchant book review of the past twelve months". One must wonder whether this has started a race towards the harshest commentary. In keeping with the trend, this week's NS includes a comphrensive take down of A N Wilson's Hitler: a short biography by Richard J Evans [4], including the line: "It's hard to think why a publishing house that once had a respected history list agreed to produce this travesty of a biography".

Have you seen a worse review than Bradshaw's take on John Carter? Suggestions in the comment box below.