600 'Harry Potter' fans treated to sneak preview

By Karen Blakeman
Advertiser Staff Writer

Nearly 600 lucky people managed to get a sneak preview of the latest Harry Potter movie yesterday, and quite a few of them were children.

Sara Mine, 8, flew in from the Big Island with her parents and uncle for a special screening of "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" at the Dole Cannery theater yesterday. Gregory Yamamoto • The Honolulu Advertiser

Some of the kids — and a few of the adults — watched the movie though plastic versions of Harry Potter's owlish glasses, given away as the movie started.

Most of those in the theater said they had read one or all of J.K. Rowling's best-selling books.

Sabrina Chew, 9, a Wai'alae School fifth-grader, won a witch's broom by playing "jan ken po."

"I'm going to take it home and play with it," she said. "Pretend that I can fly!"

Three seats down, Grant Ponciano's younger sister, Priscilla, kept missing the glasses when pairs were thrown in her direction, despite her brother's best coaching. Finally their father got up and grabbed her a pair, weathering comments from other adults about how large the children were growing these days.

As the move started, Priscilla, 7, a Kapunahala Elementary School second-grader, Grant, 11, a Kapunahala sixth-grader, and Sabrina were riveted to their seats, their eyes made even wider by the dark, round glasses.

"Wow, mothers could use that every day," Grant whispered as a pot washed itself in the Weasley family home. Sabrina, Grant and Priscilla gasped when Harry and friends vanished up a chimney in a whoosh of green fire, and held onto their chairs during a harrowing flying car scene.

Back at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Hermione Granger, (Emma Watson) and Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint), studied a complicated spell that would prove helpful later in the movie, and one of the adults in the audience made a noise that sounded suspiciously like snoring.

Then the characters — with each of the child actors looking older and more comfortable in their parts than in the previous movie — worked their way closer to learning the secret of the chamber. The monsters got larger and more threatening, and the plot picked up steam.

"It's getting scary!" Priscilla said.

Grant grabbed her hand and held it tightly. Sabrina covered her plastic glasses with her hands, and left them there for most of the rest of the movie, splaying her fingers now and then to keep track of the story. "It was a really good movie — maybe even better than the last one. But it was really scary," Sabrina said.

"Exactly," Grant said as he roused his father and navigated Priscilla toward the exit aisle. "That's why it was a really good movie."

The film will open Friday across the country.

Reach Karen Blakeman at 535-2430 or kblakeman@honoluluadvertiser.com.