Just what I expected

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Sat through this with the wife, overly long, dull, insane situations, add nonsensical ending and the cable TV rating of 1 (one) star is generous. Skip it.Silly plot, Predictable, Drama none, Boring, Long, most of it should have been left on the cutting room floor. Ending, how lame was that, the women had killed or maimed several co-workers and the CEO. She is told to clean out her desk and leave. What was that?Should have known better, it was on Lifetime Movie Network (LMN) formerly Lifetime the network for women. The Simpson had it right, the Network for stupid people.I prefer stories with many plot threads, twists, events you cannot foresee. The Temp is right out of the Dummies Guide to Movie making, page 2.

If you haven't seen "Can't Stop the Music," starring Bruce Jenner, The Village People, and a host of "B" flick personalities from multiple generations, please take it in at first opportunity. It's my all-time favorite "guilty pleasure" movie, but unlike this one, is truly so bad, so over-the-top and loony it's moved on the dial past "0" and to "10" in its awfulness.This picture, for me (as with others who've commented here) also falls into the "guilty pleasure" classification.Nothing new for Fay Dunaway; she is attractive, but gnaws the scenery like a horde of beavers.And this entire crew in the featured business enterprise, including Hutton and Boyle with their supporting players, would have trouble running a Junior Achievement project, say, where the kids were selling glove compartment emergency kits, or carriers for your television directory and remote control - much less engaging in big-time corporate strategies. Throughout the film, this thought held almost as much fascination for me as the plot and performances.Another fringe benefit of a presentation like this one is that if you're interrupted, or have to leave for a brief chore or errand, there is no problem picking it up when you return.The attractiveness of the cast, and the quality of their talents and resumés, is a few notches above those normally found in this type of t.v. film -- so this is another plus, which makes it perhaps 7*, instead of the 3 to 5 it would otherwise merit.

**** REVIEW INCLUDES "GREAT DIALOG" SPOILERS **** Wow was I surprised to see all the positive reviews of this movie here. I thought I was alone in being entertained by this. External reviews often completely trash this movie without finding anything positive. Well get this chemical makeup: Stunning and popular star Lara Flynn Boyle overtly titillating us and wearing skimpy outfits even including a bikini(!), Timothy Hutton, habitual scene stealer Oliver Platt during younger and thinner days, superstar Faye Dunaway, and Steven Webber from the TV show "Wings." How's that for voltage? Add in a proved plot line with a long pedigree (Hand that rocks the cradle, Single White Female, many more), some great whacky dialog, and top it off with the inspired idea of a corporate thriller set in a cookie company with the climax in an industrial kitchen, and yeah...I'll bank that. How could you possibly lose? Actually I really like this movie, even just watching it straight. The only problem I have is Faye Dunaway's really bad, hammy, mugging acting, and toward the end Boyle picks up some of the same style, but other than that I like it. However, if you make me analyze it, OK, it's riddled with plot holes, dropped threads, unanswered questions, implausibilities, etc, but that really doesn't matter if the movie succeeds in entertaining me. And it does. So with that in mind, you could look at it as one of the "so bad it's good" genre, and it does succeed on that level. I agree with others that the ending seems as tho it was written on the spot when someone lost the rest of the script. It actually has a lot of good stuff in it. For example: One of my favorite literary devices is the "buddy thing," which is an entertainment staple: Laurel and Hardy, Skipper and Gilligan, Kip and friend in Bosom Buddies, Balky and Larry in "Perfect Strangers," etc. This movie features that, but in four directions: Hutton and his boss, Hutton and his buddy (Webber), Hutton and his rival (Platt), Hutton and Boyle. Lots of fun there. The highlight for me is some of the whacky dialog, which I'm still quoting years later. For example: "You're BLOWIN' it man." "YOU'VE GOT THIS PROBLEM." And one of the greatest lines ever: "Good gosh how hard can it be? I'm not asking you to splice DNA you just DO IT!" Wonderful stuff. Finally, it's no surprise that Hutton and Platt both turn in performances that are well worth watching. I would have liked to give this movie a 10, because it's really one of my favorites, but I couldn't do that in good conscience, so I had to go easy on the superlative.

SPOILERS THROUGHOUT: The Temp is a by the numbers "stalker genre" Movie similar to movies like Single White female, Fatal Attraction and Swim Fan-which I had the privilege of seeing not that long ago. It's also not very good. Actually it's, while not unwatchable, pretty unoriginal in the way the story goes but I doubt when they made this, originality was the main thing they were aiming for.The two things I noticed with this movie were: first, the movie (for the beginning and middle) plays like any other stalker movie and actually becomes almost dull at times. There's really nothing here that hasn't been done a million times and The Temp doesn't do it in such a way that one is glued to the screen. The second thing I noticed is that "twists" are introduced which in this movie's case, is not a good thing, because most of them don't make any sense and the movie plays in such a way that by the end one is more baffled then intrigued.The movie also had an opportunity after one of the twists to go in a rather interesting direction but it doesn't happen. The whole scene at the end with the chases in the factory was just to much and I'm not sure if the final twist in the last few minutes was supposed to be clever but all it made me do was think: CMON! By the end of the movie The Temp has become to jumbled and over the top to be interesting. It's not the performers who were fine. But the movie itself didn't seem to try to hard and was alternatively run of the mill and over the top weird. This isn't the worst of the Worst but it isn't very enjoyable. My vote's 3 of 10.