Dredd, Ted, Skyfall, The Hobbit Win Empire Awards

Empire Magazine's annual awards show was held last night and a number of genre favorites, including Dredd 3D and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, took home trophies. The host of the show, comedian Ed Byrne, had a little fun at the sponsor's expense (Jameson Irish Whiskey) and then at the expense of Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy. "Let's be honest, if you can pronounce Jameson correctly, you haven't drunk enough of it," Byrne's quoted as saying by the official transcript. "And don't think because they've got a comedian presenting this show that I won't be taking it seriously; I'll be taking this more seriously than The Dark Knight Rises took itself. Jaysis it's a comic book; lighten up." The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey took home the trophy for Best Science Fiction/Fantasy film, with Sir Ian McKellen on hand to accept the trophy. Martin Freeman, the titular Hobbit, was on hand as well to accept a Best Actor award for the gig. Ted won for Best Comedy, which is not technically a genre film but which we covered a bit at ComicBook.com due to the pedigree of those involved. Dredd 3D, the most underrated and arguably best comic book adaptation of the year, won The Art of 3D award. Here's the play-by-play from Empire:

And the winner is DREDD, hurrah! It's about time The Law got a break. Anthony Dod Mantle's work on that was astonishingly impressive – the best-looking drug trip we've seen since we [redacted by Empire's lawyers]. Here to collect are producers Andrew Macdonald and Allon Reich, with co-star Domnhall Gleeson. "They just told me to come up, and they didn't even give me a name in the movie. I was just f---in' Techie. But it did look very pretty," grins Gleeson. Macdonald and Reich offer a little more context and thank the readers for their votes.

Sam Mendes won the Empire Inspiration award, Best Director and his film Skyfall won Best Picture. Probably safe to say he was the night's standout. "That was like watching my life pass in front of my eyes. I love that Spacey says I know humans, very serious, when really I just type-cast," Mendes (who directed Spacey in American Beauty) joked. "When I want an amoral suburbanite, Kevin Spacey!" Best Actress went to Jennifer Lawrence for The Hunger Games, and the Empire Legend award went to RED star Helen Mirren.