The MTV Movie Awards, the determinedly "irreverent" awards show at which we find out who's popular with the same young audience that has already told us that at the box office, gave every award it could to Robert Pattinson and "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse" on Sunday night.
MTV's voters have pretty much done the same thing for every other "Twilight" movie, making the evening distinctly unsurprising. But then, the MTV Movie Awards haven't been about suspense or surprise for years — certainly not since 2009, when the fans who vote online began honoring the swoony vampires 'n' hunky werewolves saga with every conceivable "honor" they could muster.
This marks the third consecutive year in which the "Twilight" films have dominated at an awards show that once gave its top prize to films like "Pulp Fiction," "Terminator 2," "The Matrix" and "Gladiator."
Also read: Why 'Twilight' Ruined the MTV Movie Awards
So Sunday night at the Gibson Amphitheater in Los Angeles, the likes of Jason Sudeikis, Emma Watson, Jim Carrey, Gary Busey, Ashton Kutcher, Elle Fanning and Steven Spielberg showed up to participate in a variety show that found time to give Pattinson awards for Best Male Performance, Best Fight and Best Kiss.
(Bryce Dallas Howard and Xavier Samuel helped him with the second of those categories, Kristen Stewart with the third.)
Stewart won an award all by herself as Best Female Performance – while, as you could probably guess, "Eclipse" was named Best Movie.
Other winners included Ellen Page (Best Scared-as-S**t Performance for "Inception") Justin Bieber (Best Jaw-Dropping Moment for "Justin Bieber: Never Say Never"), Emma Stone (Best Comedic Performance for "Easy A"), Chloe Grace Moretz (Best Breakout Star for "Kick Ass" and Biggest Badass Star for the same film), Alexys Nycole Sanchez (Best Line for "I want to get chocolate wasted" from "Grown Ups") and Tom Felton (Best Villain for "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1").
Reese Witherspoon was given the MTV Generation Award, which was presented to her by her co-star in "Water for Elephants."
That would be Robert Pattinson.
Nominees "The Social Network," "Black Swan" and "127 Hours" were shut out, though one suspects that they can find consolation in their success in other arenas.
Of course, the MTV Movie Awards isn't really about movie awards — it's about serving as a promotional platform for aspiring blockbusters, and about providing a few water-cooler moments.
Sneak peaks at "Super 8," the final "Harry Potter" movie and, naturally, the next "Twilight" movie filled the quota in the first category, while a kiss between Pattinson and his other co-star, Tayor Lautner, presumably supplied the latter … as did shots of Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis groping each other.
Among all the jokes, the funniest line may have belonged to Lautner. "The fact that we're standing up here is a testament to all the hard work that went into `Eclipse,'" he said.
Because, you know, those MTV voters really look for hard work when they're casting their ballots.
(Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)