For any film fan, being in at the start of a new awards ceremony should be really exciting. When those awards are voted for by the viewing public and therefore, you’d think, have greater credibility, the excitement should be palpable. Right. For a start, host Alexander Armstrong (most recently known for his performance as the hapless, witless husband, ex-husband and re-husband Phil Mee from Life Begins) enthused that a total of 2 million votes had been cast. Hang on, there’s over 60 million people in the UK. What were the other 58 million doing? And another thing…as Dame Helen Mirren quite rightly pointed out, since these are British awards why are they called the National Movie Awards?

They haven’t exactly gone to town on the logo either have they? Two minutes with Photoshop would have been more than enough, with time left over to make a cup of tea. Even more worrying is that at the time of writing, three days after the results were announced, their website still says “the count has begun” and “the results will be announced at the end of September.” Dear me. Still, perhaps the awards themselves will be better…

Best action/adventure film
Casino Royale

The latest Bond effort was up against Die Hard 4.0, 300 and Transformers. I haven’t seen any of them, but based on the trailers we saw Transformers looked awesome. My vote would have gone to Die Hard, if only for Bruce Willis’ chutzpah in taking on a role like that again at his age. All in all though, I don’t have any complaints about this.

Best animation film
The Simpsons Movie

(Other contenders: Flushed Away, Happy Feet, Shrek the Third). Verdict: no contest.

Best comedy film
Hot Fuzz

Also-rans: Borat (etc), Mr Bean’s Holiday, Night at the Museum. Is anyone still laughing at Mr. Bean? I mean, it was funny when he was staggering around with a turkey on his head but that was what, 15 years ago? Every one of the trailers left me without even the ghost of a smile, but at least the cast of Hot Fuzz looked as though they were enjoying themselves.

Best family film
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Up against: Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, Spider-Man 3. Here’s your first clue of the average age of the voters. I’d hazard a guess that a huge majority of the votes came in via text and Internet from under-20s.

Best male performance
Daniel Radcliffe

Versus: Daniel Craig, Johnny Depp, Rupert Grint. *Two* nominations from the HP stable this time, and one of them would have been more at home in the category Most Wooden Actor In A Cloak. Unbelievable that Craig and Depp lost out to Harry Potter and this early award shot the whole evening’s credibility for me.

Best female performance
Emma Watson

Against: Dame Judi Dench, Eva Green, Keira Knightley. OK, forget about all the others, this one really (a) takes the biscuit and (b) proves that no-one over the age of 15 voted. Are you seriously claiming that Emma Watson gave a better performance than Judi Dench? Or even Kiera Knightley for that matter.

It doesn’t matter how much talent you draft in to hand out the awards, or how many numbers Take That perform, nothing can disguise the fact that the voting model for these awards, which should have validated them, ended up doing the exact opposite. The results in many cases are quite literally incredible. The Oscars have had their knockers over the years, but at least the people doing the voting have some credible reasons for what they do, and some knowledge of what they are voting on.

A strange mix of categories too, I thought. OK they may have been keeping things simple (and cheap) for the first year to see how things went, but…best animated film? No credit for director, sound, make-up, costume, writing? And what was all that about “The James Bond franchise” winning the special recognition award?

Apparently the organisers of the NMA hope they will rival the Baftas as the UK’s premiere film awards ceremony. On the evidence of Saturday night I don’t think the Baftas have anything to worry about.