12 of the most excoriating reviews ever written

1.

Steve Hogarty posted his 2007 review of The Sims 2: H&M Fashion Stuff on Twitter last month, claiming its severity led EA, the game's publisher, to call for him to be sacked. He 'stuck to the facts' in his follow-up.

2.

Chloe Papas's review of Chris Brown's album Fortune struck a chord with music fans who thought his violent past had been too easily forgotten.

Regardless of whether Chris Brown has any musical talent (he doesn't) or whether this album is any good (it isn't), the man recently brutally assaulted a woman, and is still regularly invited back to award shows and worshipped by 'Breezy' fans worldwide. Which is, frankly, disgusting. And for those of you out there saying you need to separate the music and the man: screw you, don't encourage his actions. Final words: don't buy this album.

Her score? "No stars. Ever."

3.

The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw, take a bow, for this review of Grace of Monaco:

It's traditional for Cannes to start with something spectacular. This is certainly no exception. It is a film so awe-inspiringly wooden that it is basically a fire-risk. The cringe-factor is ionospherically high. A fleet of ambulances may have to be stationed outside the Palais to take tuxed audiences to hospital afterwards to have their toes uncurled under general anaesthetic.

4.

In one of the most epic-yet-informed film rants ever captured on film, professional curmudgeon Mark Kermode eviscerates Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. It's worth listening to the full 11 minutes in its terrible glory but the highlight is definitely his likening of Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom's on-screen chemistry to two chairs mating.

5.

A crowded field, but Lindy West's Sex And The City 2 review for the excellently named Seattle Stranger stands apart:

A home video of gay men playing with giant Barbie dolls.

6.

There were hundreds of contenders for the coveted accolade of 'most sarcastic Dan Brown reviewer', but hats off to the Guardian's Steven Poole.

That night, the satisfied writer finished the exciting book. He gazed enigmatically into the middle distance. Then, using only his fleshy brain and a metal laptop, he began to compose his historic review.

7.

It's fair to say Mary Pols didn't much care for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Roll out!

My son does not own any Transformer dolls. I'm sorry, make that Transformer action figures. But if he did, upon my return from Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, I would have taken these Hasbro toys outside, placed them under the wheels of the car and driven back and forth across them until they were ground into dust.

8.

What happens when a movie largely regarded as the worst ever made meets a film critic hailed as the best of his generation?

Roger Ebert on Battlefield Earth:

Battlefield Earth is like taking a bus trip with someone who has needed a bath for a long time. It's not merely bad; it's unpleasant in a hostile way.

9.

Restaurants now: AA Gill on L'Ami Louis, for Vanity Fair.

The cramped tables are set with labially pink cloths, which give it a colonic appeal and the awkward sense that you might be a suppository.

10.

Giles Coren, for the Times, takes Balthazar to task for getting everything right apart from one thing; the food.

I am fed up with the city of my birth, life and eventual probable death being treated as a dustbin for the pale shadows of restaurants that have done well elsewhere. All these feeble replicas of places by Ducasse, Robuchon, Wolfgang Puck, Vong Wotsisface, Daniel Boulud... not to mention a thousand half-baked barbecue, burger and fast-food fads.

11.

The Observer's Jay Rayner, who wrote a book, My Dining Hell, about his least favourite restaurants, said of Mayfair's Novikov:

You could, if you wish, hate Novikov on principle. Arkady Novikov, whose name is above the door, owns 50 or so restaurants in Moscow and likes to boast of his connections to Vladimir Putin.

But you really don't have to hate Novikov on principle. There's more than enough about the place to let you hate it on its own terms.

12.

But the i100 award for most sarcastic reviewer goes to Dustin Rowles of Pajiba, who, it turns out, was not particularly enamoured with Adam Sandler circa November 2011.

If you believe in Occam's Razor - the idea that the most reasonable explanation is the simplest one - God, in a way, almost feels like the simplest way to explain the miracle of existence. But now, even those doubts have been called into question.

The idea that a God would allow war, famine, disease and Snooki to exist is not unfathomable: It's the universe's karmic balance, the yin to the yang of peace, prosperity, and good health. There's a give and take to existence: Death cancels out life, starvation in Africa cancels out obesity in America, and Two and a Half Men cancels out Community.

But the scales have tipped too far, calling my entire tenuous belief system into question. I've seen Adam Sandler's Jack and Jill.