It's kind of funny that Canónigo Films, Cuca Canals and Christian Molina made a movie bashing and preaching against television violence when its movie is just as violence. Hypocrites. Christian Molina is not a role model at all, with his work in erotic thrillers. A series of movies that sex and violence! So he has no right to preach against television violence. I think personally, he made this movie only because he sees television as a threat to cinema filmmakers. The movie is produce by a Spanish director, but it's doesn't feel like a Spanish film. It doesn't even feel like an America film or British. I have no clue where this movie is supposed to be place at. I want to be a Soldier is a movie about Alex, an average ten year old kid who has a great imagination. While the film wants you to think of this as unhealthy obsession that marks him asocial to the point that children like him are unable to befriend his peers. The reasons because he has imaginary friends that indicate an emotional void that been missing. Big names in child development had long maintained that kids must invent their friends for dark reasons. Clearly it's not like that at all as Alex has a good relationship with his parents. In reality, many people have imagination friends and it's pretty healthy. Alex seems like a normal boy who creates one just for fun. A role model name Astronaut Captain Harry based on his interests in space travel is not troublesome. It wasn't until the birth of his twin baby brothers, Alex feels more neglected than usual. With his parents spending more time with his brothers, he seeks somebody to spent time with him. He sees it in everybody's favorite babysitter: television. He ask his father into buying him a TV for his room, and starts spending hours watching violent programming. As his antisocial behavior deepens, he also takes on a new imaginary friend, Sergeant John Cluster who will teach him how to realize his new dream of being a great soldier. It was here that he became more and more morbid fascination for images portraying violence. He begins to develop a problems with his parents and school when he start to act out the violence he sees. The producers got the idea for the film due to reading a newspaper headline that stated: By the time a child turns 18, if parents don't prevent it, their child will have seen more than 40.000 murders and 200.000 acts of violence on Internet, TV, newspapers etc. Canonigo collaborates with a group of teachers to help get this movie be made so to prevent that. I think the movie just makes it worse by over blowing that all television is bad. Television isn't all bad for children. Media is about 50 bad and 50 good. Nothing is intrinsically evil. TV, like all technology, is a double edged sword. It can distract you from other, more productive things, but also help you be aware of the world you live in. There are some programming that is very beneficial for children that teaches people to do or finish a task. If a child is watching smart quality programming, that child will be more like well-off than those that didn't. Just because a child is watching a violence movie doesn't mean he will turn out evil. Violence in societies such as ours is declining, as media violence increases. In the US, the rate of violent crime has been in sustained decline for 10 years. It's because most media that shows violence, shows the consequences of such actions which is death, prison, or personal pain. Most children are smart enough to know that and willing to follow those rules in place so they don't end there. Plus, most television have rating system in place as well as rules of what they can show and can't show. Watching violence in television is the same as seeing it in art paintings, books, and other media sources. If there is a source that needs to be look at, it's the internet. The internet has more freedom than television on what they can show. Like I said before, it's depends on what you view. Alex sees his parents are constantly fighting due to the twins which is causing the boy to hate them as he blames them for the downfall of his family life. There is a really good speech toward the end about that. The movie does bring up some good points, but still, the film basically one side says that if you are a soldier or want to be a soldier, you are a psychopath who likes killing and torturing anything you can like a Nazi. It has nothing to do with patriotism, protecting yourself and your family or helping others. The military has other roles then killing people, especially today. Soldiers can send to areas to help the people affect by natural disasters, drug abuse or crime. If your sole purpose in joining is to kill, you won't pass the screening process. The kid needs real discipline, not "No TV". That should be the primary point made in the film. The movie suffers from that. The fact that Danny Glover, Robert Englund, and anybody involve in the film that continues to film horror and action violent movies after this, is prove that they have no clue what they are talking about. They shouldn't be taken seriously.

Me, i'm 45.. young for my age in mind yet insightful to life, the universe and anything you may wish to add.

I was pointed in the direction of this movie buy a friend of mine who laid the table with the trailer.. the trailer says deep..heavy..sad, and in parts the film is that... however.. This film isn't about plots or twists or acting, although i thought the parts played by all were believable... I think to some degree we measure believability of the role by how drawn we are into the story and our own experiences of real people and situations... growing up on a council estate say.. as opposed to a largely sheltered "middle class" community, will throw you into situations that others may consider unbelievable but are nonetheless true. This story rings true across many a household... in part. don't try and disassemble this story like many reviewers do, a film is meant to take you on a journey.. a journey of emotions and thoughts, if a film achieves that... then the film is good...regardless of the "holes in plot" etc.. who cares... you see.. a reviewer tends to make the mistake of over analyzing a film rather than remembering its to take the person on the journey i mentioned earlier...if u want a more complete reality.. leave films alone and watch documentaries....

there are no glaringly obvious holes, there is no poor acting or bad scripts..it will touch you, maybe move you.. it drew a tear.. i could relate to things that were unfolding.. in places.. as i'm sure you will when you see it. There is a message in the movie..and to be quite honest its a very poignant message... watch it.. you'll like it, but it has that thing Schindler's List has... where its a good film but it feels wrong saying its good..if you know what i mean. Very worth the watch...ignore the over critical analytical yuppie reviews... its a film... a good film.

"I want to be a soldier" is a wonderful movie for all the wrong reasons. The general plot follows the vicissitudes of Alex; he is a child who wanted to be an astronaut and had an astronaut imaginary friend, up until his parents bought him his own TV. Since the TV shows lots of violent acts like shootings, murders and war movies, Alex is now a violent 10-year-old who wants to be a soldier (and has a US officer as his new imaginary friend).

The direction is quite poor in and of itself. A good portion of the movie consists of the main character monologuing about being a soldier so he can kill people, torture prisoners, make Nazi-like experiments on his victims, become a dictator and so on, while a collage of violent stock footage runs on the screen. This happens quite often, too, and I think makes at least 25-30% of the whole movie.

The characters are about as stereotyped as possible, what with Alex hanging around with the geeky kid when he's "good" and then with some bullies who smoke and have knifes after he switches over to the "bad" side. Alex's family is about as cliché as possible, with the mother being obsessed with the newborn twins, the father having an affair and both dismissing their kid's behavior as "a phase".

The "imaginary friend" concept is sort of nice and adds an interesting layer to the movie as both friends (astronaut and officer) are played by the same actor, and they switch roles depending on the phase Alex is currently in. It's not enough to save the movie from its silliness, though.

"I want to be a soldier" is quite enjoyable to watch for its "so bad it's good" wackiness and its unending stream of dumb plot devices that ultimately end up in Danny Glover stating how "TV is evil". However, it's far from a good movie if taken seriously. I can only suggest you rent this film if you're smashed and/or in for a laugh with some friends.