The Ultimate Walt Disney Company Performances Bracket -- Round Three, Day Six

Talk about a fixer-upper.

There are at least two Sophie’s Choice-style votes today. (And there’s just not enough photos in this world of live actors interacting with the Disney theme-park-style version of the animated characters they performed, as evidenced by the picture above this paragraph.)

I will admit that, on this Saturday morning, I’m going to be more interested to see what the second-weekend box office looks like for the latest Ant-Man brand deposit; as much as I was left pretty cold by the film, I will not deny that when I attended the advance press screening, I would not have guessed that audiences would be relatively nonplussed by the final result. (Only two Marvel movies have gotten a B CinemaScore: one is Quantumania and the other is Eternals, which…does not surprise me. No other Marvel movie has rated that low with the audience-friendly CinemaScore tracking system. Not great, Bob!) I doubt its legs will be impressive, but I guess we’ll all get a sense today.

Anyway. No more MCU talk! Time to vote!

(2) John Goodman, Monsters, Inc. vs. (18) Brad Bird, The Incredibles: I’m giving this one to John Goodman, in part because it helps to be a leading character and not a supporting one. Brad Bird’s very funny in his own movie, in a role he created, but…yeah, John Goodman as Sulley is one of the better and more underrated performances from Pixar’s early days.

(7) Bruce Willis, The Sixth Sense vs. (23) Nathan Lane, The Lion King: For similar reasons, I’m voting for Bruce Willis here. Nathan Lane’s very funny as Timon, and I wish he got more screen time as the meerkat, but he doesn’t. And Bruce Willis has to anchor The Sixth Sense beyond the haunted performance from Haley Joel Osment, doing so masterfully.

What do you say?

(3) Jeremy Irons, The Lion King vs. (19) Eartha Kitt, The Emperor’s New Groove: Two great villainous performances going head to head, and I am sticking with Jeremy Irons. Scar is a truly brilliant character, and Irons does his very best to imbue the Shakespearean role with vivacity and life, in every single line reading. Kitt’s great, but arguably less nuanced (on purpose), so Irons gets it for me. But what do you think?

(6) Ellen DeGeneres, Finding Nemo vs. (11) Angela Lansbury, Beauty and the Beast: Yes, Ellen DeGeneres is funny as Dory. But Angela Lansbury was Angela Lansbury. It’s not the fairest barometer to use, but (to quote the character in the previous matchup) life’s not fair, is it? Lansbury gets it for me.