Continuity mistake: After the core is removed from Whiplash during the race scene, a stream of blood visibly trails from the corner of his mouth. The shot changes to him spitting and the blood is gone. The shot changes again and it reappears. (00:37:05)
Continuity mistake: At the beginning of the film Tony Stark is at the Expo wearing a tuxedo with a white shirt under it. When he leaves the stage and checks his blood toxicity it changes to a black shirt.
Continuity mistake: Ivan doesn't have a toothpick in his mouth when he was handcuffed, his head covered with a hood, and put in a van. As soon as the hood is taken off and he walks towards Hammer, one suddenly appears in his mouth after an angle change.
Continuity mistake: During the questioning by the Senator the jars on the congressmen's table disappear in the angle from behind, only to reappear in the front ones.
Continuity mistake: During the Monaco part of the film,when Hammer and Christine Everhart are talking at the table and the camera is angled towards her,Christine is holding her phone in her right hand and her recording device in her left. When the camera changes angle to face Hammer and Christine stands up to leave,the phone and recorder change hands.
Continuity mistake: When Hammer breaks Ivan out of prison and they have dinner together in the aircraft hanger after, the butler fills up Ivan's glass with red wine but in the next shot both glasses (wine and water glass) are full and he has a bottle of vodka even though we don't see the butler give him the vodka or fill the water glass.
Continuity mistake: When Ivan is first brought to meet Hammer, Hammer is eating a dessert with a cherry on it. The cherry disappears and then reappears. The spoon also keeps swapping between being inside the food and by the saucer. (00:45:45)
Continuity mistake: At the end of the first Iron Man, Tony puts his blue card down and instantly says he is Iron Man. But when the exact same scene is seen on the TV at the beginning of this movie, Tony doesn't put down a blue card before saying he is Iron Man. (00:01:20)
Factual error: In the hidden scene the car stops and you get a flash of the front of the car the New Mexico license plate is in focus (to show were they are). However in New Mexico they only issue you one plate to be used at the rear of the car.
Other mistake: Justin Hammer picks up the M134 like it's a feather. In reality, it's a hundred pound gun, even a big bloke would have to work hard to pick something like that up.
Other mistake: When Stark was making the new Triangle core, where the Laser beam melts everything on its path, you will notice that the wall, locker, shelves are cut into pieces, but when the powerful laser beam reaches the core, all three wires were left unscaved/not scorched. (01:23:00)
Continuity mistake: When Hammer brings the parrot, the handle above the cage is leaning to the left. A couple shots later it's leaning to the right side, with no one having touched it. (01:04:35)
Continuity mistake: Near the end of the Whiplash-Iron Man racetrack fight scene in Monaco, Whiplash has Iron Man hooked with his right hand whip and Iron Man is down on one knee. The shot switches to focus on Whiplash's face and it appears as though his left hand is forward and hooked to Iron Man. This can also be seen in the 'suitcase suit' clip.
Continuity mistake: Throughout the entire film, the black and white shapes in the hair of Ivan's beard are different in almost every single scene he's in.
Factual error: As the credits roll, the songs are featured. The song 'Highway To Hell' by AC/DC is printed as Written by Angus Young, Malcolm Young, and Brian Johnson. It was not actually co-written by Brian Johnson as he was not yet the lead singer of the band. It was actually written by Angus Young, Malcolm Young, and Bon Scott, nee Ronald Belfort 'Bon' Scott, who was the lead singer then until his death in 1980, after which, Brian Johnson was then hired as the new lead singer.
Continuity mistake: In the scene before Tony proposes to Pepper, she has on black high stiletto heels. As they walk through his workshop, while Tony is carrying the modern art picture as they're walking, when Pepper tells him that Stark is in complete disarray, we can see at the bottom of the screen that Pepper is wearing flats. (00:19:15 - 00:20:30)
Continuity mistake: During the first fight between Tony and Ivan he's got his right hand's whip wrapped around him then camera cuts to Ivan and it's suddenly his left hand's whip.
Factual error: The fake passport that Ivan is given along with the tickets to Monaco has several mistakes that show it to be fake to someone with basic ID training. The passport number, date of birth and expiry date do not match the Machine Readable Zone at the bottom of the passport. Also, one of the chevrons is reversed, and there are too few of them.
Deliberate mistake: The whole Monaco race sequence is totally (but deliberately) ludicrous. First no driver would be allowed without a fireproof mask and rest of required security measures, as Stark does. Second, the real-life security controls are very strict: When an accident occurs a safety car shows up, flags and audio advices signal the racing cars for them to lower their speed and avoid accidents. Nothing to do with the wild, uncontrolled race depicted here.
Deliberate mistake: Whiplash's Orange jumpsuit defies physics. The scene shows Whiplash powering up his harness at the race track, which burns off the top section of the jumpsuit, however the jumpsuit then mysteriously and impossibly appears tucked under the harness's belt. If the belt was in the inside of the jumpsuit, the jumpsuit would just fall to the ground and leave Whiplash basically naked, and not be tucked under the belt. If the Harness belt was placed on the outside of the jumpsuit, then the remains of the jumpsuit would have draped over the belt covering it up. There is no way the jumpsuit can end up tucked under the belt, but its done so Mr. Rourke and the movie can remain PG.
Chosen answer: It is stated in the commentary that Sam Rockwell wanted his character to have a spray tan, making his hands an orange color.
sadie