10 Badly Miscast Actors In The Marvel Cinematic Universe

3. Micky Rourke - Ivan Vanko (Iron Man 2)

If there was any single Marvel Cinematic Universe movie charged with the most instances of "miscasting," then Iron Man 2 takes the prize. That's to say, aside from miscasting Scarlett Johansson and Pepper Potts as previously mentioned, Marvel opted for Mickey Rourke when it came time to cast villain Ivan Vanko (otherwise known as Whiplash).

On paper, this actually probably looked like something of a good decision - unfortunately for the movie, and for Rourke, he delivers a strange, half-a*sed, near drunk (?) performance. It's partly down to the mostly ineffective script that Rourke flounders in his role here, but he also phones in "generic foreign bad guy" and offers up nothing else of interest.

Looking at Whiplash in the comics, however, it should have been a bit more obvious that Rourke probably wasn't the right man for the job to begin with. A younger, far more nimble guy with some actual personality would have gone a long way - and given Rourke's tendency to phone in his performances unless he's in the right mood, we just ended up with a lumbering, ugly mess of a villain.