Suspicion of intellectualism and academia have been the unfortunate byproducts of the rise of the big dumb Hollywood movie.  Film critics, once a respected and authoritative source of reasoned artistic analysis, have come to be looked upon by the movie-going masses as archaic contrarians stuck in a time when color film was a novelty and who get their kicks by obliterating the most popular movies like “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” simply out of spite, or as some despicable defense mechanism to cope with their seemingly increasing irrelevance. To those of us saw that film as a racist, idiotic, misogynistic, incoherent affront to the very idea filmmaking, the average fanboy might say something like, “Can’t  you just learn to relax and enjoy a big dumb action flick for what it is?”  To which I would say, no.  At least not when it could have been replaced by a big smart action flick.  And especially not when the “Transformers” of the world, backed by million dollar marketing campaigns, cut in to the viewership of even the slightest intellectually, visually or otherwise stimulating offering.

Granted, the clash between the hype-driven mainstream and the critical establishment may never reconcile, but every now and then a film like “Zombieland” comes along and heartily endorses the crotchety old film critic’s argument that a movie can be both fun and smart.

Directed by newcomer, Ruben Fleischer, “Zombieland” takes the tired old zombie apocalypse exercise where a couple of unrelated savvy survivors discover one another and learn to get along in a new blood-soaked world — that eventually turns out to be not so terrible — and somehow makes it watchable.  Sam Raimi’s groundbreaking 1981 horror institution, “The Evil Dead,” proved that comedy and horror could coexist, and Edgar Wright’s 2004 innovation, “Shaun of the Dead,” sold that paradox to the mainstream with a brilliantly fused marriage of decaying zombie grotesquery and gleefully cheeky Brit-humor.  “Zombieland” is certainly no “The Evil Dead” or “Shaun of the Dead,” but manages to capture the spirit of those films, albeit in typical over-produced Hollywood style, and gives the flailing zombie movie a much needed jolt of good old fashioned charm.

Woody Harrelson is the primary purveyor of said charm as Tallahassee, a good ol’ boy from the sticks whose matchless zombie killing deftness is, for him, simply a means to an end.  That end being the acquisition of a yellow, spongy log of processed decadence known as the Twinkie.  Jesse Eisenberg (“Adventureland”) is endearing and sympathetic as his neurotic companion, Columbus, who’s managed to stay alive  thanks to his antisocial tendencies and his rigid obedience to an enumerated set of rules that ensure survival of any zombie encounter.  They, along with a couple of sisters discovered along the way dubbed Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), forge an unlikely bond amidst the chaotic bloodletting of the undead world around them.

The script, written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, is exactly what it needs to be for this type of picture to work. It’s short (88 minutes), funny, and packs in the show-stopping set-pieces without getting carried away with big-budget extravagance.  In fact, its relatively slim $21 million budget may be just what saved this film.  The thought of what it might have become with a bloated $100 million+ budget is enough to make me cringe.

Jokes fall flat here and there and the constantly superimposed zombie survival rules eventually overstay their welcome, but thanks to the filmmakers’ unpretentious but clever approach to the material, good performances, and one of the greatest cameos I’ve ever seen, “Zombieland” defies the odds and becomes that rare event where critic and fan become one.

Score: 4/5