(at around 1h 26 mins) When the particle beam from Iron man's particle accelerator is cutting everything in half, it doesn't cut the cables going to the center piece holding the material that the new element will be created from, and it doesn't damage the center piece either. It also doesn't damage the particle accelerator itself, which is highly improbable considering that it could clearly cut through steel.
(at around 8 mins) During the Expo speech Stark is wearing a pinstripe suit with a white shirt and black bow tie. When he is checking his blood toxicity immediately after the speech he is wearing a different suit, black shirt, and no tie.
(at around 1 min) At the end of Iron Man (2008) when Tony Stark reveals that he is Iron Man, he has blue index cards in his hand. At the beginning of Iron Man 2 when Anton Vanko is watching the news when Tony reveals, he doesn't have the cards in his hand like in the first movie.
(at around 36 mins) When Whiplash has just been disarmed, after attacking Tony Stark at the racetrack, in one shot he is on his back, looking up, and blood runs down the right side of his mouth all the way to the base of his ear. Then when the angle changes to show the CRS taking him away, the blood is gone.
(at around 55 mins) During Tony's birthday party, when one of the girls starts "pulling" bottles, a brunette in the background wearing a bikini is shown wearing a towel in one shot, then without the towel covering her legs in the next.
(at around 2h) In the film credits for the theatrical version, the song "Highway to Hell" incorrectly lists Brian Johnson as co-writer. Angus Young, Malcolm Young and Bon Scott are the correct writers (fixed on home video release)
(at around 1h 2 mins) Randy's Donuts, a famous Los Angeles landmark, doesn't have any interior dining.
The closing credits show "Highway to Hell" as being written by Young/Young/Johnson. Correct credit should be Scott, as Brian Johnson had not yet joined AC/DC.
LTC Rhodes is wearing a class ring from the United States Air Force Academy on the middle finger of his left hand. These rings are worn on the ring finger in keeping with the policy that used to restrict the amount of jewelery a serviceman could wear. Graduates of the service academies, who were bachelors while cadets or midshipmen, were loathe to discard their class rings upon marriage so most sport a custom made wedding band flush against the class ring next to the knuckle.
The striped sign on Vanko's workshop is a DOT placard placed on trucks. It indicates that the truck is carrying environmentally hazardous liquids (DOT 3082). Doors in buildings are marked with four-part NFPA hazard labels.
(at around 3 mins) A newspaper on a stand says "Stark takes reigns at 21", should be "reins". This is a running gag from Iron Man (2008).
Several times the "Hall Of Armor" is in the back ground. Each of the Ironman Mark Suits have arc reactors in the chest, so it is possible Rhodey could have piloted the Mark II suit.
Ivan Vanko's mustache changes in size and lip coverage several times. This is easily explained by the fact that there was a long period of time spent developing his own arc reactor. He could have shaved multiple times during this period.
Tony Stark arrives at the expo by flying in his Iron Man suit from an aircraft. As he can already fly, there is no need for the airplane. Tony was concerned with making a grand entrance, not with practicality, and has more than enough money to concoct any elaborate entrance he wants. While impractical and expensive, it's certainly not out of character for Tony Stark.
At the beginning of Ironman 2, he lands in the super suit at Stark Expo, he of course has the prominent arc reactor right in the middle of his chest. Moments later he removes the Ironman suit with the aid of robots, revealing a full tuxedo. The arc reactor is under the tuxedo. There's no reason to fault this though, as even today there are proximity chargers for pacemakers and for mobile phones, so the suit could draw power wirelessly from the chest piece, as long as it's within close proximity to the chest piece.
(at around 1h 1 min) After Rhodey lands at Edwards Air Force Base, in the wide shot both the B2 Stealth Bomber and War Machine have disappeared. This is because the Air Force wouldn't let them film the aircraft from that angle, and War Machine was eliminated to save production costs.
(at around 1h 50 mins) "Kodak" is written backwards on a building in the final rooftop scene, revealing use of a mirror image.
(at around 28 mins) Right before the car race, when Tony is looking in the mirror, his "reflection" doesn't match up to his movements, indicating there was no actual mirror for the shot.
(at around 40 mins) When Tony mutes the video on the plane, the word "mute" appears on the screen slightly before Tony gives the command.
(at around 40 mins) Pepper Potts sees a full intra day chart of Stark Industries stock on TV at 7:30 AM Pacific (10:30 AM Eastern). The NYSE opens at 9:30 AM Eastern, so it has been open for only a hour.
The scene of the race at Monaco Grand Prix has no continuity at all. Traditionally, drivers run the urban circuit in clockwise direction. In this film, drivers start the race in clockwise, then seconds later they are seen driving in counter-clockwise (Louis Chiron curve), then again clockwise (Mirabeu Haute and Fairmont Hotel) for the rest of the scene.
(at approx 5 mins, 5 secs) the term from the flight crew/pilot, "you are clear for exfiltration over the drop zone" makes no sense. Stark is not being exfiltrated to the Expo, he's being "infiltrated".
At the Expo, Hammer introduces his drones, representing 4 of the 5 branches of the U.S. military - Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. Missing is the U.S. Coast Guard, and while it is run by Homeland Security instead of the Department of Defense, it is still a real U.S. military service. The service with the toughest training is the Marines, and second toughest is the Coast Guard, followed by Navy, Army and Air Force.
(at around 53 mins) When Tony asks Natasha how she might celebrate her last birthday, the sound of Natasha's heels clacking against the floor are heard as she walks away, despite there being carpet under her feet.
(at around 1h 1 min) When Rhodes brings the armor to the Edwards Air Force Base and lands, the camera is reflected off the shield.
Many parts of the film are shot in L.A. and at different L.A. locations but it is also supposed to be set in New York City.
Ivan Venko's goal in his first attack was to show that Iron Man could be harmed, but his plan required several events to happen for which he had no control. 1. Stark had to be at the race or at least close enough to respond to what Venko was doing on the track. 2. If Stark was at the race, he would need to have access to his Iron Man suit 3. If Stark was at the track suited up, he would need to be close enough that Iron Man would not simply destroy Whiplash from a distance with the many various range weapons on the suit.
The crux of the movie is Tony Stark searching for a replacement to palladium in his chest piece, which is poisoning him. Rhodey's iron man armor runs from an arc reactor not implanted in his chest. Tony could have removed his arc reactor and replaced it with a nontoxic battery at any time without ceasing to be Iron Man.
Vanko's first weapon design was an energized harness, and not an armored suit. This system would have provided no protection against injury. On the Monaco raceway, when Happy smashes him into the guardrail three times with the limo, Vanko should have suffered crippling if not fatal injuries.
For Tony Stark to invent a new chemical element would be as impossible as to come up with a new integer between 1 and e.g. 100. Chemical elements are uniquely identified by the number of protons in their atom (atomic number). There are no new elements left to discover up to atomic number 118. Increasing the atomic number beyond 118 is futile because elements from 83 to 94 are already unstable and radioactive and beyond 94 are increasingly more unstable with extremely short half-lives.
Vanko sneaks onto the racetrack in a track-emergency-crew uniform & helmet. But Stark only decided to drive minutes earlier, without telling even Pepper or Happy. So Vanko couldn't have planned for that - he would have expected Stark to be in the restaurant where the emergency outfit would have been out-of-place.
(at around 1h 3 mins) When Nick Fury and Natalie Rushman are with Tony Stark and give him a vaccination to cure his blood from poisoning him, Nick Fury gives him a syringe filled with what he says is "Lithium Dioxide". However, lithium ions have a single positive charge while oxygen ions have a double negative charge. As such, lithium oxides have two atoms of lithium per atom of oxygen, not two atoms of oxygen per lithium as "Lithium Dioxide" would suggest. In addition, any oxide of lithium would decompose immediately in any kind of water solution, such as would be required to inject it into a person.
Ivan Vanko makes occasional errors in Russian (tense, case, etc.) that no native speaker would do.
(at around 18 mins) When Tony is in his basement lair he's looking at video of him at the Senate hearing. The caption reads "Tony Stark On Capital Hill", but it should read "Capitol Hill".
(at around 1h 11 mins) While this might be meant to demonstrate Justin Hammer's incompetence as a weapon's designer, he incorrectly refers to the M26 Modular Accessory Shotgun system as the M24.
The General salutes Rhodes before leaving. The subordinate should salute first.