If nothing else, there is nothing "Meh" about it.

Rating: 9/10 (8 April 2016)

Best since the Lion King? Well, I don't know, I'd need to do a side-by-side comparison once it comes out on home media, but it certainly has the potential to be so.
See, the problem is that, while this film is indeed good, the few times at which it blunders, it doesn't just blunder a little. It blunders big time.
Think of it as being- 95% OMG THIS IS AWESOME, and 5% Oh sweet cheese and crackers, why did they do that?!!
Some of the dialogue gets very painfully ham-fisted with the discrimination message, and the characters subsequently come across as tragically unaware because of it.
A few of the characters, chief among them (pun not intended) being Chief Bogo, fell into this category so often that I actually thought they were being built up to be the villains (spoiler alert: they're not).
Equally frustrating about the discrimination angle is that, when you step back and think about it, there actually is a lot of potential rationale behind a lot of the dialogue getting thrown around, but the movie never really explores that and instead tries to use it as a metaphor for our own prejudices (which, again, when you really think about it, they very clearly are not).
The sloths at the DMV? That gets old in about five seconds, but the producers clearly thought it was comedic gold and drove it into the ground, turning what could have been an otherwise cute but forgettable gag into an absolute teeth-pulling aggravation.
But that's about it for the bad stuff. These bits are liable to irk you, not because they are so bad, but because the rest of the film is excellent by comparison. Judy Hopps is an excellent protagonist, easily the best female lead character Disney has ever produced and in my top five overall. Nick Wilde also excels as a supporting character, even coming across as amusing and likable early when the movie clearly does not want us to feel that way about him yet.
The best part about these two characters, and the way they interact with each other, is that, despite being depicted as total contrasts, they are both smart, constantly one-upping and shooting one-liners at each other, so much so that you are guaranteed not to pick up all of them in your first viewing.
One scene, for example, has Judy quip after tallying up a figure that "we (rabbits) are good at multiplying." I didn't realize that this was a double-meaning until much later, not because I didn't get it (there's another joke about rabbits and the way they breed that is much more ham-fisted in its delivery), but because I was too busy laughing at everything else going on during this scene to even notice it.
Some of the absolute best scenes (and thank Jaguar Jesus, there are many of them) are when Nick and Judy are alone and just talking. They have some of the best dialogue -- the best character interaction -- in any animated film that I can remember, so much so that I would honestly be interested in a spin off TV series or set of animated shorts that was just the two of them sharing an apartment or chatting while on patrol. They are that good together.
The plot, though a clear and obvious (and often clumsy) metaphor for discrimination, is by no means predictable, and while you will likely figure right from the start that the character being set up as the villain is not the villain, it will make you wonder if there even IS a villain.
Spoiler alert: There is a villain. And the big reveal of who it is isn't that surprising since some of the earlier-revealed accomplices are the same species. But while it is obvious who is going to be revealed as the main villain at the climax, it did still surprise me (albeit not in hindsight) to know in advance that was who it was going to be.
And frankly, the big tragedy of them not getting more into the dynamics behind their stereotypes is that it would have been an opportunity to better explore the setting. Zootopia is the most compelling setting -- the greatest foundation for an entire franchise -- that Disney has ever produced.
A sequel? Pfft. Zootopia warrants sequels, prequels, spin off movies, spin off TV series, an entire theme park of its own and a multi-server MMORPG. It is THAT GOOD.
This movie's faults are glaring, absolutely, and it's a tragedy that they were not addressed, because everything else is pure epic awesomeness. Just go into it knowing what its drawbacks are and you will leave being ticked off at me for not giving this a 10/10.