A group of over-privileged county club princess teen girls attempts to solve a murder mystery, one that they discovered while trying to cover up a golf cart accident. The whole discovery premise was unbelievable. "Let's dump dad's golf cart in the lake so he won't know we banged it up" is inane to begin with. The acting was not there. Absolutely no one could read a line and make it convincing. The plot was worse than Nancy Drew and the whole movie featured tons of product placement. How does someone sleep after a 12 pack of Mountain Dew? If I wanted to watch commercials I would watch commercials, not combined with Nancy Drew meets D. E. B. S.
11 Reviews
Good Teen Rom-Com Mystery!
ed-415673 September 2021
Really bad, unless it was supposed to look like middle schoolers made it
sashah-817794 November 2022
Just terrible acting, dialogue, direction, camera work, and plot progression. Mystery is very thin, the "clues" just fall in their laps, and there's a ton of banter between the characters that has no relevance to the plot. There are a ton of side actors who are irrelevant. The actors had no chemistry between them. For example, the actresses who played sisters, you wouldn't know they were sisters unless they actually told you. It was very difficult to finish. I bet the reviews that gave this movie 8 or 9/10 were posted by the cast members themselves. Of course if this was made by middle schoolers, then please ignore all my criticisms.
Amateurish
martiuew21 November 2021
I watch the movie beginning to end. I accepted it for what it was. Maybe a highschool film class project. The diaglog was wooden and at times I felt it was being read. The cinematography was good and the plot line was thin.
Terrible. Was it Computer-generated dialogue?
matteos-5495914 November 2021
Did they ask random middle school kids to come act in a movie? Terrible southern accents! Awful dialogue. Geez, this movie makes the cheesy made-for-tv Netflix Christmas movies seem amazing in comparison! Hahaha, just ... awful.
A sleeping pill for insomniacs
rafika15 December 2021
A veteran insomniac, I have tried to watch this film three times and have fallen asleep during each attempt. I suppose I will never find out whodunit. There were serious issues with the acting and directing as well as with the original premise for the story. Finally, I have lost interest and moved on... I am surprised that some viewers described characters as wholesome since a number of them came across to me as downright creepy.
Not great
jeffsweeney197717 April 2022
Great family night murder mystery!
vvqby10 August 2021
The family thoroughly enjoyed this teen murder mystery with various twists and turns even to the very end. A refreshing take on life in a upper crusty side of town as various teens try to solve a mystery before the local police jump to the wrong conclusions. Well written and non-formulaic to what Hollywood thinks the masses desire for summer time fun. I am definitely going to watch again to see what I missed in the first viewing. Highly recommend for those teenagers in the family who have become jaded with the normal murder mysteries. Great movie depicting teenagers as resourceful, determined and funny.
Cute Movie
Carolina_transplant10 August 2021
Fun movie for teens! Cute characters and an entertaining story! I like the premise that the kids come from well off families but aren't rich and aren't spoiled. Their parents worked hard to get where they are and expect their kids to do the same. One works to save for college and another works to help support her beloved horse. They're good kids that sometimes make bad decisions like most typical teenagers! But, the movie keeps things light, which I like when so many teen shows and movies are too drama heavy!
Pleasantly entertaining teen summer movie
ClockworkMajor13 August 2021
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.
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.
See also
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