Mickey Rourke plays Ivan Vanko (Whiplash), a brilliant physicist with a vendetta against the Stark family. Rourke exudes menace and has a magnetic physical presence. However, the script does him a disservice. Vanko spends the majority of the film in the background, building drones for the secondary antagonist, Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell). When the final battle finally arrives, Vanko is dispatched far too easily. He is a villain with the potential to be terrifying, but he never reaches the heights of Jeff Bridges' Obadiah Stane from the first film.