BY BOB STRAUSS >Film Critic

You don't have to like '80s pop culture to appreciate "Son of Rambow."

The movie charmed and impressed this skeptic most of the time. And if mighty, monosyllabic he-men and New Wave music fashions get your nostalgia juices flowing, I'll bet you're really going to have a blast.

Inspired by some of his own formative childhood experiences, writer-director Garth Jennings ("The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy") has spun a wacky, mostly convincing tribute to the joys of boyhood obsession. Some cheap shots are taken at authority figures. But overall, this is a funny and tough-minded slice of weird life, as well as a sweet if wayward ode to movie love.

Set in a semirural/post-industrial part of England, "Rambow" mainly sees the world from 11-year-old Will Proudfoot's (Bill Milner) point of view. His widowed mom Mary (Jessica Stevenson) is a member of the ascetic Brethren sect, which means no TV or movies or any other mass media for her children.

One afternoon, Will is shanghaied by his school's most incorrigible delinquent, Lee Carter (newcomer Will Poulter), and is exposed to a video of "First Blood" that Lee illegally taped. This rocks Will's world, and when Lee shares his dream of a homemade sequel, Will can think of nothing other than becoming Stallone Jr. As the boys go about shooting their DIY extravaganza, they find navigating the first real friendship either have ever had trickier than creating movie magic.

>Bob Strauss

review>

SON OF RAMBOW

>PG-13: violence, language, children in peril.

>Starring: Bill Milner, Will Poulter, Jessica Stevenson, Jules Sitruk.

>Director: Garth Jennings.

>Running time: 1 hr. 36 min.

>Playing: ArcLight, Hollywood; Landmark, West L.A.; Pacific, Glendale.

>In a nutshell: Nicely shot comedy about two mismatched English boys bonding over a homemade action film is a charming salute to goofy kid creativity and goofier '80s pop culture.