You pretty much know what you’re getting when you walk into a sports movie that bills itself as “an inspirational account … inspired by a true story.” And you pretty much get that: The story of Ken Carter, the basketball coach at Richmond High School in a tough section of the San Francisco Bay Area, features rousing, crowd-pleasing moments and breathless buzzer-beating action. It’s also full of the obligatory speeches about turning athletes into students and turning boys into men. The difference here is that the person making those speeches is Samuel L. Jackson. Melodrama is not in his repertoire. The result, like the recent “Friday Night Lights” and “Miracle,” is a movie that manages to transcend its predictable, by-the-numbers structure, although its tough-love themes inevitably will remind you of “Stand and Deliver” and “Dangerous Minds.” Rated: PG-13 for violence, sexual content, language, teen partying and some drug material. Running time: 137 min. Rating: Two and a half stars out of four.

‘Racing Stripes’

Dismissing this as a paltry retread of “Babe” would be mean, and it’s hard to be mean to a movie that’s so well-intentioned. The similarities are awfully hard to miss, though – as are the differences. Whereas the talking little piggie of “Babe” wanted to be a sheepherding dog a decade ago, the talking baby zebra of “Racing Stripes” (voiced eagerly by Frankie Muniz) wants to be a racehorse. Like Babe, Stripes the zebra lives on a farm, where he’s surrounded by a menagerie of computer-enhanced creatures who crack wise – only here their voices are provided by a much higher-profile assemblage of celebrity talent (Whoopi Goldberg, Joe Pantoliano, Snoop Dogg and the best of all, Dustin Hoffman as a Shetland pony). What “Racing Stripes” offers in star power, though, it lacks in heart. It’s strangely distant, with its superficial platitudes about tolerance and daring to go after big dreams. Rated: PG for mild crude humor and some language. Running time: 93 min. Rating: Two stars out of four.

‘The Phantom of the Opera’

You can’t exactly go small when you’re doing a movie adaptation of an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, but even walking in with expectations of grandeur cannot prepare you for this bombastic monstrosity. Simultaneously amped-up and rock-and-rolled down, presumably to make it palatable to a wider audience, director Joel Schumacher’s film is far more interested in earsplitting crescendos than in subtly touching the heart. It is shot sumptuously, though, and it’s packed with rich details. And some of the now-familiar tunes can be lovely – when the music isn’t drowning out the vocals, that is. (The luminous Emmy Rossum, who plays Christine, sang with the Metropolitan Opera starting at age 7.) It’s just really hard to take this “Phantom” seriously, despite how seriously it takes itself. Scottish actor Gerard Butler plays the Phantom and Patrick Wilson plays Raoul. Rated: PG-13 for brief violent images. Running time: 140 min. Rating: Two stars out of four.

‘The Aviator’

Martin Scorsese’s latest extravaganza is visually astounding, constantly dazzling and frequently thrilling. Every detail is perfect, as you’d imagine from a director who’s as famous for perfectionism as the subject of the film, the eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes.

Strong performances abound, from star Leonardo DiCaprio to Cate Blanchett as Hughes’ legendary love Katharine Hepburn to Alan Alda as a scheming senator. But similar to Scorsese’s last collaboration with DiCaprio, the 2002 behemoth “Gangs of New York,” it’s ultimately about the spectacle.

The director seems more interested in aesthetics at the expense of substance, and John Logan’s script doesn’t delve deeply enough into Hughes’ psychology. Rated: PG-13 for thematic elements, sexual content, nudity, language and a crash sequence. Running time: 166 min. Rating: 3 out of 4 stars.