Spoiler Free Review, TL;DR at bottom
Introduction
My expectations were low when I first sat down to watch Charlotte Moon Mysteries: Green on the Greens. Typically I'm the kind of person who heavily enjoys watching movies like Drive, Blade Runner, and Gattaca, so I didn't expect much. This goes double for "teen" oriented movies, as I find most of them to be far too full of pointless romantic subplots, cringe-worthy humor, and teen dialogue that was obviously written by a 50-year-old man who is trying to be "hip".
I'm very happy to say that Charlotte Moon Mysteries does NOT hit any of those boxes. There are romantic subplots, there is humor, and there is teen dialogue, but thankfully none of it made me audibly groan or turn the TV off as these films usually do. I was instead very surprised to see that not only was the film entertaining, but it had obviously a lot of professional work put into it. I've seen a lot of films made for a lot more that don't match the editing, camerawork, and overall "look" of CMM, so I definitely need to applaud the camera crew, sound crew, and editing crew.
Story & Characters
While the story of CMM revolves around a murder mystery, the film also has a few romantic subplots involving some of their characters. The romantic subplots don't feel ham-fisted or like they're taking up way more of the movie screentime than they deserve, and I found one of the specific turns one of them takes to actually be quite interesting as it wasn't something I expected. As for the mystery plot itself, I was glad to see that the main character was relatively eager and ready to get to solving the mystery, as there are far too many mystery plots these days that bumble around for too long before they get to the "good stuff". The suspect list felt thorough and the classic "whodunnit!?" is played out pretty effectively as the characters go around and investigate the various suspects. While I am a little disappointed that there wasn't more clue-finding or interrogations, I understand that those are qualities of a more "mature" mystery film, which this film unashamedly isn't (and that's a good thing for their target audience). Overall, the story in CMM is entertaining, funny, and something I found pretty interesting.
Camerawork & Scenes
There are lots of movies that will film a simple dialogue scene with only one shot, and this makes the scene feel very static and boring. Lazy anime does this even moreso, as they don't want to spend the time drawing different scenes. For "real" movies, the director or camera crew don't want to take the time to setup different angles and camera positions for a scene that really is just two characters talking to each other. Thankfully, that sort of laziness is not present in CMM. Many scenes have various angles to keep even a static scene "moving" and to effectively show the emotions of the characters presented within them. The camerawork itself feels very professional, with everything important being shown in shot and no angles feeling odd or disjointed as they cut together. I also need to applaud the camera crew for some specific scenes, as I can't imagine they were easy to film.
Acting
Here's where people are going to be worried the most: the acting. Thankfully a majority of the CMM cast is capable, not deadpan, and energetic for their role. There are only a few cases where I believe the acting could have used some more work, such as additional takes or more training given to the actors, but I understand that this is a low-budget film and so that likely wasn't an opportunity for them. I am, at least, glad that a majority of the characters don't make me cringe, and I think most of the actors play their roles very effectively. They made the characters, which were well-written, even more entertaining.
Sound & Music
While some more big budget titles can boast having several or more licensed songs playing, thus gaining the attention of their audience, CMM mostly has to rely on what I assume to be stock music or smaller scale stuff in order to add atmosphere to their scenes. Anyone who has played a lot of indie games will be able to detect in an instant Kevin MacLeod's "free to use" tracks, and this can often times take one out of the experience. Thankfully, I find that most of the music used overall does its job of adding proper atmosphere to the scene and emphasizing what is occurring. As for the sound editing, there aren't many moments in the film where audio feels horribly imbalanced, and it is overall something I didn't recognize. Ultimately, the sound effects and such do their job and I didn't find them to be horrible, which is one of the better qualities you can get in an independent film.
Conclusion/TL;DR
Overall, I would say that CMM is a modestly entertaining mystery movie that seems like it would be good for the younger audience. It's safe, pleasant, and takes itself seriously enough to be a good mystery/romance while also taking itself not as seriously to be a good comedy. It's pretty hard to blend those two tones, but I found CMM doing it pretty well. The professionalism present in the film is also very welcome, and made the film more entertaining of a watch. If you're someone who can appreciate a low-budget and comedic mystery movie, I can definitely recommend trying out Charlotte Moon Mysteries.
