The MTV Movie Awards are typically an exercise in frothy Hollywood film promotion but on Sunday night they were a ritual of redemption for two of Hollywood’s biggest stars, Tom Cruise and Sandra Bullock.

The show was jammed pack with popcorn commercials but if you paid attention there were also surprisingly emotional moments, none more than the 21 Century survivor declarations by the stars of “Top Gun” and “Speed.”

There was a moment there, when Tom Cruise showed up live on the MTV Movie Awards in character as aggressive, dynamite-loud film producer Les Grossman, when we were really, really nervous. Sure, he killed it in ‘Tropic Thunder,’ and he’d been rocking the taped promos for the awards show but … live? Seriously?

Seriously. With a three-minute booty-shakin’ performance, the actor himself officially ended the era of Tom Cruise bashing. Oprah’s couch? Scientology? The eyepatch in ‘Valkyrie’? Fuhgeddaboudit! Cruise became definitively cool again with his live appearance, complete with swaggerific undone bow-tie and J-Lo as his dance partner.

The 47-year-old proved to be a better-than-decent dancer, keeping up with J.Lo when she joined him on stage halfway through his performance.

He had the audience on their feet, and the people at home cracking up.

Cruise’s wife, actress Katie Holmes, watched on nervously as her hubby made a “tycoon” of himself.

With matching canes, Jennifer Lopez shimmied her way onstage like a proto-Bond girl in a stringy, metallic dress and danced to her pop hit “Get Right” alongside Cruise who kept rhythm- butt-slapping, Michael Jackson spins and all–with great energy and enthusiasm.

Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz are the stars of the show, Tom plays a secret agent that is setup on a blind date, and this is how he meets Cameron Diaz. The date goes all wrong as Tom is forced to go on a mission and he has no choice but to take Cameron with him. The mission is to prevent a powerful energy source from the grip of evil hands.

The cast also includes MAGGIE GRACE, KYLIE’s, OLIVIER MARTINEZ, MAGGIE GYLLENHAAL’s hubby PETER SARSGAARD.

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