5 highlights from the MTV Movie Awards
Actor Will Smith accepts the MTV Generation Award.
The MTV Movie Awards never fail to be people’s favorite awards show televised the day after they’re actually held and including a category for best kiss. This year was no exception, as the ceremony celebrated 25 years of a network, ostensibly focused on the music industry, celebrating the film industry.
Hosting the awards this year were Kevin Hart and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, stars of the upcoming film “Central Intelligence,” who gamely tried to make two hours’ worth of movie trailers into must-see television, with mixed results.
Here are the things that the 2016 MTV Movie Awards left viewers musing over this year.
It never rains in Southern California (except when it does)
The 25th MTV Movie Awards took a big risk by opting to film outdoors on the Warner Bros. lot, a choice that initially didn’t seem to pan out given the fact that Saturday was one of the few days that drought-ridden California got any precipitation to speak of in what feels like the last 25 years.
But the show must go on, and go on it did, with elaborate references to the films of the last year, including a visually stunning homage to “Mad Max: Fury Road” to open the show. The risk paid off, even if it did mean candid shots of celebrities awkwardly standing around as if at a mandatory company social event and introducing exclusive movie clips as though begging for your donations to support a generic fundraising telethon.
Revenge of the television star
For an awards show aimed at celebrating the best of the movie industry, MTV gave an astounding number of gilded popcorn statues to individuals who got their start in television. Beyond obvious TV personalities like Amy Poehler and Chris Pratt, who starred together on recently concluded NBC sitcom “Parks and Recreation,” the awards show also recognized Will Smith (“The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air”), Melissa McCarthy (“Gilmore Girls”), Adam Driver (“Girls”), Ryan Reynolds (“Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place”), Adam DeVine (“Workaholics”), Rebel Wilson (“Super Fun Night”), Jennifer Lawrence (“The Bill Engvall Show”) and Leonardo DiCaprio, who was on that one season of “Growing Pains” after everyone stopped watching.
The lesson to be learned from this, ultimately, is that a lot of people in Hollywood work in both film and television, apparently.
Warrior women
The 2016 MTV Movie Awards opened with a nod to “Fury Road” and awarded Charlize Theron with best female performance for her portrayal of Furiosa. Theron accepted her award “On behalf of all the Furiosas out there, you are all the true warriors.”
Furiosa was one of many fierce females to take home a trophy, including Jennifer Lawrence winning best hero for “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay -- Part 2” and Daisy Ridley winning best breakthrough performance for “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.”
But perhaps the biggest mic drop for the night came from Melissa McCarthy’s acceptance speech for the comedic genius award when the comedian remarked, “I may be the first woman to receive this award but am not certainly certainly not the first one to deserve it,” before going on to call herself, “a walking human patchwork of other remarkable funny women who I loved and studied over the years.”
A nice night for ladies all around.
Kevin Hart loves the b-word
Except, of course, for the fact that Kevin Hart dropped approximately three dozen instances of the b-word, which felt like it worked at cross purposes with the message the awards themselves tried to be delivering. Ah, well.
Marvel v DC
In what may have been the most awkward recurring theme in an evening that included hosts Hart and Johnson, was the pair hyping competition between Marvel and DC. Thanks to the fact that the entire ceremony took place on the Warner Bros. lot and DC is actually owned by Warner Bros., the entire thing felt like product placement, most likely because it was.
The evening began with Hart and Johnson praising “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” and drawing praise to its box-office totals, despite the film being a huge box-office disappointment (in addition to being a critical dumpster fire). The duo later attempted to start a beef with the stars of Marvel’s “Avengers” for no reason and mere minutes before Chris Evans introduced footage from Marvel’s upcoming “Captain America: Civil War.”
But perhaps the most underwhelming aspect of the imaginary Marvel/DC rivalry was the much hyped clip for DC’s “Suicide Squad” that largely made the film look like a more gritty, less interesting version of “Guardians of the Galaxy.” You can’t blame DC for trying, but you can blame them for falling short.
More:
Memorable moments from MTV Movie Awards’ first 25 years
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