Suki and Linus are lion cubs. They are adventurous and eager to learn what life will have in store for them. Their mother is a patient and loving lioness, part of the pride, peacefully residing in the beautiful landscape of East Africa.

Setting out on a journey of self-discovery and natural curiosity, Suki has to take the rough with the smooth in a typical teenage rebellion of defiance and self-importance. This is the journey of her life!

I will start by describing the fantastic scenery. It is like watching a natural history wildlife programme on the Discovery channel. The colours are amazing and extremely vibrant for a dusty landscape. The brilliant blue of the sky and the glowing sun, simply shine through in the opening scenes, making you feel very wistful for a holiday. It immediately sets your mind at rest that this will be an excellent film, not a comedy, like most talking animal type films.

The story looks at the role of Suki as the main star of the film, a young lioness cub, with much to learn about survival and family loyalties. She craves excitement and finds her peers extremely boring and her parents even more so. Despising the way the others kill for food, she vows to be a vegetarian when she no longer needs her mother’s milk, and although this is ludicrous in real life, it really lends itself well to her character and seems entirely normal for Suki. It’s almost like a lot of teenage girls life stories, in that the Wanderers excite her, like the bad boy your mum always hoped you would avoid, and make her want to seek them out and see the world from her own inexperienced eyes. She feels invincible and the stubborn streak in her will not be quashed by her mother’s warnings.

This brings me onto the makers of this film. John Downer is one of the world’s best natural history filmmakers and has made some cracking documentaries about lions as well as elephants. He joined forces with TV writer, Simon Nye, who wrote Men Behaving Badly, and produced this amazing cross between natural history, a small amount of family comedy and drama.

Finally I have to give Sean Bean a mention as the voice of Dark, the dangerous Wanderer who Suki is intoxicated with. The lion itself is a magnificent animal, a true image of a lion in all its glory. Huge mane and massive paws, with a menacing, yet protective air about him. Sean Bean, however, gives this lion a whole new concept and his voice gives Dark the edge he needs to be a real baddie. A deep, ominous and threatening tone completely takes you over when he first speaks; yet further into the film his protective side edges out and takes on a softer approach, yet never quite tipping over into a complete pushover. Suki and Dark were my favourite lions in this film and that is pretty much wholly down to the expert acting from Bean and Winslet who truly made this film as brilliant as it was.