Marvel Villain Mickey Rourke Trashes ‘Crap’ Marvel Movies While Praising The Acting On ‘Law & Order: SVU’ (Which He Just Discovered Exists)

There was a time when people might have been interested in hearing Mickey Rourke’s thoughts on what constituted a good movie or talented acting. That time was 1987. Still, the opinionated Oscar nominee has almost made a second career out of trashing his own movies. And for more than a decade, his favorite target has been Iron Man 2.

Rourke’s latest knock came via Instagram, in a bizarre game of One of These Things Is Not Like the Other. While gushing about the stellar acting on display in Law & Order: SVU—a show that premiered in 1999, but Rourke only seems to have recently learned about—he took a moment to trash the MCU’s “crap” acting.

After praising the next-level acting of Mariska Hargitay, noting that “There’s very few, if any actresses in films these days that can hold her jockstrap” (a quote she’ll no doubt want to add to her business card); the brilliant “physicality” of Christopher Meloni (wait until he learns about Law & Order: Organized Crime); and “the charisma, the attitude and swag and senserity” of Ice-T, Rourke went on to thank the pandemic for bringing SVU to his attention—then sh*t all over the MCU. Again.

“i guess if it wasn’t this lockdown most likely i’d never see this show, but since i do all my lifting training in my living room my tv been on whole lockdown and i was able to discover this fabulous show. Respect to all of you, the work that you all do is real acting, not like that crap that all on Marvel sh*t.”

Ummmm… thanks!

After rising to fame in the 1980s with movies like Diner (1982), The Pope of Greenwich Village (1984), 9 ½ Weeks (1986), and Angel Heart (1987), Rourke all but abandoned Hollywood for a career as a professional boxer. In 2008, he mounted an impressive comeback as the star of Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler—a role that earned him an Oscar nomination and a renewed interest from filmmakers, producers, and casting directors.

It was as a result of this re-found fame that Rourke was cast as Ivan Vanko, a.k.a. Whiplash, a power-hungry Russian physicist determined to take Tony Stark down in Jon Favreau’s highly anticipated Iron Man sequel. But Rourke was bitter that his ideas for the character didn’t make it into the final cut. He told CraveOnline:

“I explained to [screenwriter] Justin Theroux… and to [Jon] Favreau that I wanted to bring some other layers and colors, not just make this Russian a complete murderous revenging bad guy. And they allowed me to do that. Unfortunately, the [people] at Marvel just wanted a one-dimensional bad guy, so most of the performance ended up the floor… At the end of the day you’ve got some nerd with a pocketful of money calling the shots. You know, Favreau didn’t call the shots. I wish he would have.”

You can read Rourke’s full love letter to SVU above.