The beauty and precision of the animation in this Disney film is its most obvious feature. You find yourself praising the lighting and cinematography before realising it's all in the drawings.

The grandeur of the Serengeti Plain comes through the animation, and the young audience may actually feel something like amazement.

The unique matching of voice to visual makes each of the characters sing, in the figurative as well as the literal sense.

Best of all is Scar: his sly treachery is worthy of Shakespeare's master overreacher, and Jeremy Irons responds as if born to play Richard III.