Video Review: 'Major Payne'

Wayans is a hoot as a cartoon-tough Marine who gets stuck training a bunch of junior ROTC misfits. (His spoof of Mar tin Sheen's hotel-room freak-out in Apocalypse Now is almost worth the price of a rental.) But eventually, he gets sucked in by the same enervating formula that's dragged down underdog kid flicks from Meatballs to The Mighty Ducks. Adding insult to ennui is the writers' notion that this bullet-headed bully could charm a pret ty teacher (Parsons), much less inspire cadets to win climactic war games. In real life, they'd have fragged him instead. C+