Topic: Review: Return Of The King (Yeah, there are spoilers, deal with it)

[SFC Bennie]

Return of the King (2003), d. Peter Jackson.

I know, I know. In a film translation from literature to cinema. never let your memory of the book sully the movie. I thought I could do that. Honest. I only whined a little bit about Two Towers, and just the teeniest bit about Fellowship, but, alas, it's impossible for me to do so about Peter Jackson's version of the third book in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Return of the King.

Don't be mistaken by my negative tone. This film is a marvelous achievement. As spectacle, it's as grand as it gets. It's a technical wonder. It has great performances. Wonderful scenery. And I loved the first two movies. Yet for some reason it just didn't work for me as well as either Fellowship or Two Towers. It has a lot of wonders, but there are also a lot of little things that niggle at me.

Let's start with the good stuff. You know the part that I loved most in Return of the King? Bernard Hill, magnificent as ever as Théoden King, standing before his army, giving the "sword day/red day" speech, and knocking each of the spears in turn as he parades. Wow. It's a moment of grand emotion that just clicks perfectly. When the disguised Eowyn shouted ?death!? I wanted to scream it too. This is an absolutely amazing scene.

So where's the problem? It's in the set-up. In the book, the Ride of the Rohirrim at the start of the Battle of the Pelennor isn't a great scene; it's one of the high points of the narrative. This is what every single guy in Gondor has been asking Gandalf and Pippin since they arrived in Minas Tirith: "when is Rohan arriving?" In Chapters One and Three, that's pretty much all that people say. Unfortunately, in the film, no one asks it. Why? Because we don't get to really know anyone in Minas Tirith. No one except Denethor and Faramir. As a result, we don't get a sense of the stakes, or what the people have invested in the arrival of the Rohirrim. I never would have guessed that the one character I'd miss most from the books would be Beregond. Never. But there's a great big hole in the heart of Return of the King, and Beregond and the other missing people of Gondor are at the heart of it.  

Worse, the arrival of the Rohirrim are no longer a desperately looked for event, but pretty much turn up uninvited after Gandalf conspires to light the signal fires. And they play second fiddle to the army of the dead anyway, who go far beyond their book role in capturing the ships of the Corsairs; they end up single-handedly winning the Pelennor themselves. (Pity the poor Rohirrim. First they need elves at Helm's Deep, then they need ghosts on the Pelennor. It's a wonder the Dunlanders haven't enslave the lot of them a long time ago.)

Even so, the Ride of the Rohirrim is so magnificently staged and performed that it wins its rightful prominence in the movie - it may rank among the greatest moments in the entire history of film. I only wish that this - and many of the other high points and sequences - had been better supported by the narrative. And moreso here than in any of the previous two films, I wish that the creators had a little more faith in the original material, that Denethor had been subtler, cleverer, and had waited until he was on his pyre before spilling the fact he knew about Aragorn - it made no sense for him to bring it up with Gandalf as soon as they meet and never talk about it again. I wish that Jackson had slapped himself when he thought of ?Frodo kicks Sam off the island for stealing lembas? deviation - yes, the original story where Frodo and Sam get separated is awkwardly written, but this is much, much worse: it's Middle-earth 90210, especially when Sam **gasp** finds the stolen lembas bread and realizes what Gollum's done.

I wish they'd had a Mouth of Sauron to give the final battle a more human face, and to build the tension before the battle. There's a lot of battle sequences, but their setup and context need work.  If anything keeps Return of the King from being the masterpiece it deserves to be, it's that the bits work better than the whole. The film's length works against it - it's so long that it's no wonder the studio balked at including more material, and it definitely suffers for it. It needs quiet moments between the jam of spectacle, to keep the pacing steady. Here, with a few exceptions, it bounces from set piece to set piece. This has been a problem for the entire series, but it's worse here.

And I really wish Jackson had dialed down the emotions one or two notches. The Elrond/Arwen and many of the Frodo and Sam sequences are running at a James Cameron/Titanic levels of overwrought silliness. Frankly, in ten years, this movie's going to be best remembered for the number of bad Sam/Frodo slash parodies it'll have inspired. Jackson overuses the elegiac slow motion effect to the point of ridiculousness, especially when Frodo wakes up on the Field of Cormallen. Admittedly it's overly easy to spot homoeroticism in entertainment these days - we live in snickering times - but Jackson's style has made it very difficult to ignore.

One of the things that's interesting (and to some a little maddening) about Tolkien is that he's willing to provide substantial variations in tone and theme. Middle-earth has noble knights and kings, but it also has commoners and people who chatter on for hours in pubs  With only a few exceptions throughout the series, when Jackson's narrative has deviated from Tolkien, he's been less subtle than the source.

This is not a flaw of a director's who's playing it safe; and that's both Jackson's chief virtue and his biggest problem: Jackson's eye for spectacle and aesthetics is greater than his eye for subtlety, and sometimes Tolkien works best when he's being subtle or whimsical. Or at least mundane; for every Aragorn, you need some glimpse of a Butterbur so you know what he's protecting; for every Faramir, you need a Beregond so that you can see the loyalty he inspires.

However, in terms of overall vision, Rings requires an epic vision, someone who's willing to walk the razor's edge between heightened drama and camp. At this moment in time, Jackson is clearly the right man for the job. His team has engineered a marvel of mood, highlighted by a spectacular vision and attention to detail, augmented by dramatic performances of a Shakespearean caliber and temper that are usually shunned by today's cinema. If Jackson occasionally stumbles onto the wrong side (or the dramatic norm eventually turns against him and the films are eventually consigned to camp) he should be forgiven. Despite its flaws, at its worst Return of the King is a magnificent conclusion to one of the greatest epics in the history of cinema. It's the weakest film of the three, but that's still praising with a very faint damn.    

[Toasty0]

You know what bothered me, and bothered me, and bothered me throughout these 3 movies? It seemed that even though Frodo is supposedly the hero/main character it is Sam who has all the arc and growth. The only other character to come close in the movie version is the ranger/king.

Did you get at all through the 3 films?

Best,
Jerry  

[Elvis]

I thought the portrayal of Frodo was very flat. I'm not sure why I think that though. I felt there was no sense of time having passed. For all would have known it was just two weeks from the shire to Mordor and back again and not 13 monthes. Maybe thats just a limitation of film though. It seemed as if through the last 2 movies he just looked sullen and walked real slow. Keanu Reeves could have done as well. Other things of note, mithril would stop a spear gore  that would skewer a pig but it won't stop the jab of a very large spider. I thought, "Oh my God that stinger is huge." Maybe I always pictured Shelob as more of a black widow and not a tarantula.

The Denethor portrayed in the movies is not the same as the one in the book. The movie Denethor lacks any nobility, he is just mean spirited, the father you would never want even if you were the favored son.

Palantir? Whats a palantir? But those are tied to closely to the King so Aragorn would of had to accept the fact that he was king a lot earlier then the movie portrayed. Maybe I just miss the scene, where Aragorn strives with Sauron and reveals himself and the blade that was once broken. How else would Denethor know?

Anyway  its quite entertaining for 3 hours even though it is 20 minutes longer(they could have just ended it with the eagles).

   

[Kortez]

I saw it tonight.  I would classifiy it as a great movie that makes a lot of strange choices, and leaves out a lot of the subtlety which makes certain characters so great.

One example is what Sam does after Frodo has been stung by Shelob in the book and what he does in the Movie.  There is no sense of the desperation that exists in the book in the movie.  He just charges and kills with Sting.  Nobody knows he even has the ring let alone does anything with it.

Aragorn is mishandled, even though the actor is great as Aragorn.  I agree the palantir was badly mishandled.  I wish they had been able to show how Pippin really first comes into contact with it.  Again, a subtlety is left out for the expediency of a more formulaic telling of the story, and it saves time.  The part with Aragorn claiming the fealty of the army of the dead is nice, but it would have been much better had they used the palantir correctly and conveyed the proper sense, from the book, of how Aragorn keeps his identity as king more or less secret until the right time, all to make sure Sauron is not sure what is going on.

Theoden IS magnificent.  When he dies it is just crushing, and he conveys the care and love he feels for Eowyn very well.  Kudos to Bernard Hill.  

Denethor is totally screwed up.  All he does is eat and show his mean spirited attitude, and nobody ever learns why he is so lost to despair.  Nobody knows he has used a palantir and has been slowly broken by Sauron.  It is totally ignored in the movie release!  I am amazed.  Denethor is not just crushed because of the loss of Boromir.

You are right on about Beregond being one relatively insignificant character whose absence leaves a gaping hole in the complexity of Denethor and Gondor.  We have no idea how interesting Pippin's discussions are with Denethor either, nor does Gandalf say anything to Pippin about how his comments, though, contrary to Gandalf's instructions, make for a possibly even better result.

Oh, and with the palantir that Pippiun touches, the special affects were really amazing.

I looked forward to the Battle of the Pellenor Fields more than about anything else and the army of the dead tainted it.

Nevertheless this was a GREAT movie.  I need to see it again.  I did not move once during the entire showing.

 

[S'Raek]

I've not seen the movie yet, it hasn't come out over here at the movie theatre on base in Sicily.    But you guys seem to be pointing to problems that I have had with Jackson in the first two movies.  Sometimes I just don't understand why he changes things from the book.  I know that books and movies are two different artistic mediums and have to be handled differently.  But the story as written by Tolkien is wonderful and loved by lots of people.  Make changes necessary to show this story, leaving everything else alone.    

[TheBigCheese]

I could see the films editing had been kind of rushed, scenes in the trailer are not in the cinema version,the 7 mins of Sarumen were cut out, the confrontation between Gandalf and the Witch King ,the mouth of Sauron ,scenes in Cirith Ungol ,the torture of Frodo and the watchers were obviously cut and throughout the film continuity was lost because of missing parts.I am sure the special edition will be the movie I was waiting for as the FOTR and TTT spec eds were superb,especially the new Orc bits in TTT.Hope to see more Orc bits in Cirith Ungol

I was less happy with this version than the others and felt it had less depth and mystisism than the others.I would have loved to see the shores of Valinor
It also said nothing of what happened to Gimli or Legolas afterwards  

[JMM]

I'm lost, the books were written years ago, who in the heck is Rohan?  

[TheBigCheese]

Gondors brother  

[KATChuutRitt]

Rohan is the country that Theoden rules JM.

I agree with most of the assessment made above.  Would like to add a few comments:

The Good:

The fight scence with the Oliphants was Great!!!!  And I loved Gimli's comment of "It still only counts as one", continuing their contest from Helm's Deep.

The Scene where Aragorn commands Allegiance from the Dead was great, although I wondered about the absense of the other rangers esp the sons of Elrond who accompaied him.  

The moments of Hobbitness exhibited by Merry and Pippin dancing in Edoras, and later after their return to the shire really came off well.

The Ride of the Rohan was incredible, the effects acting, etc.  My only fault with this was that the army of Sauron seemed a little too prepared for them as they charged, I envisioned more of a panic and surprise, facilitated by the Pukel men.  I also missed Theoden engaging with the Red Serpent who I had seen as a meeting of two Cavalry forces.  Yet the Red Serpent design on the Oliphants made their substitution clear, and it was well done, yet I still longed to see Theoden best an enemy King in personal combat riding far in advance of his troops.

The scenes with Arwen that were not in the book at all were incredibly moving, a well done alteration here.

The Bad:

Denethor as stated above

No mention made of the relationship between Faramir and Eowyn.  He is near death and she is heartbroken over Aragorn, then suddenly they are side by side healthy and smiling as Arwen and Aragorn are reunited.

The retreat of the rangers of Ilthein under Faramir even before the Ringwraiths actually appear, and he appearing shot up by arrows instead of a victim of the Black Breath of the Nazgul didn't make the final defeat of the Witch King as awe inspiring as it could have been.  It also made the appearance of Aragorn as a healer and loremaster unneeded.  An aspect of the King of Gondor that needed more work throughout all 3 films.

The time distance relationship near the end of the movie.  When they keep flipping back and forth between Frodo and Sam headed up the mountain and the fight outside the gates of Mordor, it seemed to me that Sam and Frodo had far too much of a travel and climb to get there in time.  Yet our noble hobbits seemed to make an ascent quick enough to  make a comic book hero with super powers proud.

The arrival of the troops from other parts of Gondor was something else I missed, the mounting despair as each contigent is far smaller than expected.  The absence of the Prince of Dol Amroth and Beregrond was also notable.

The exclusion of the power of the Voice of Sauroman, and Aragorns revealing himself, and Gandolf confronting the Witch King at the Gate, were also disappointing.

Worst of all perhaps was the defeat of Sauron at Pelenor Fields at the hands of the Host of the Dead, who never should have been there anyhow, taking away from the nobility of the defenders of Gondor and the Riders of Rohan.  It cheapened what had been a most awesome epic battle until their arrival.


The Ugly

This is what I think could have been done to allow for many scenes that were left out due to time constraints.

Exclusion of the fight scene with the Worg riders in The two Towers, it wasn't in the books and really served no purpose.  Elimination of Frodo's fight scene with Gollum after escaping the web and Shelob the first time.  Elimination of the scene where Pippin is singing as Faramirs rangers are charging, replacing it with the brave rearguard action as they retreat as in the books.  Also eliminate much of the fight scenes at the river from  the Return of the King and the eariler one at Osgiliath in The Two Towers.

With a little better management I think at least some things could have been included that were lost.



Now I did enjoy the movie thouroughy, and I think Jackson did a good job, but I think it could have been even better.  Hopefully an uncut version on DVD will include many things left out at the theather.
 

[Kortez]

Did you all see Gondor when Aragorn is formally crowned?  It didn't look like it needed rebuilding to me.  I thought it must have been Borg, and that it had healed itself.   I need to see that again and judge whether first impressions were accurate.

Every scene which was added that was not in the book detracted IMO, EXCEPT the Arwen material.  They changed the story, and I wonder if Tolkien's son had anything to do with that, and in so changing left things out which would have made an impact.  I couldhave screamed in the Battle of the Pellenor Fieids, Faramir was so short-changed that it totally removed the truthful power of his character, Gandalf never met the witch-king at all, which made no sense at all, the lembas scene was utterly idiotic, and obviously not Tolkien, the handling of Samwise once he decided he was going to rescue Frodo was a joke, designed more like a typical slash job I'd except in forumlaic theater, and they changed the palantir interaction so much they ruined it (as I mention infra).

When the heroes and their rag-tag band confront Sauron after Gondor has been spared, pending the destruction of the ring, they did not transmit the desperation of it  properly.  Gandalf and Aragorn are trying to make it look like THEY have the ring.  THAT is why Sauron turns his attention, incorrectly towards them, instead of searching for two starving wretched hobbits, struggling with all they have to crawl to Mount Doom and to drop the ring into the forge in which it was made.

Frodo did not appear the hero he truly was, either.  That is a shame.  You'd think he and Samwise would have had at least a horrible sunburn after the ring is unmade, but I guess they wore their SPF 10000 sunblock.

I understand the breaking of Saruman's staff is in the extended version.
 

[Scott Allen Abfalter]

Quote:
You know what bothered me, and bothered me, and bothered me throughout these 3 movies? It seemed that even though Frodo is supposedly the hero/main character it is Sam who has all the arc and growth. The only other character to come close in the movie version is the ranger/king.

Did you get at all through the 3 films?

Best,
Jerry  

Re-read the books.  In them, Frodo starts off as the main viewpoint character but as the story progresses Tolkien gets more interested in writing about Aragorn.  IMHO.  

I, for one, was absolutely enthralled by the movie.  I've read the books dozens of times over and they are dear to my heart.  I know that there are differences, but I didn't care at all.  The movie was beautiful.  

 

[Alidar Jarok]

I thought the movie was great.  I knew the Saruman scenes wouldn't be in, so I wasn't shocked (also, after 3 hours, I just wanted the movie to end).

Since its been awhile since I read the book, I missed most of the complaints written in this thread.  I felt the lack of mentioning that the Palantyr (or however you spell it) belonging to the steward of Gondor (I'm not good with names ) was wierd.  I'm really shocked about Gandalf not fighting the Witch King (which I thought was one of the coolest moments in the book).

I like the progression of the battle a lot more than Helm's Deep (in that one, after the first few minutes, the amount of foolish stuff the heroes did without getting killed began to get annoying).  In this battle, it seemed a bit more natural.  The tension and emotion didn't seem to be as much as it was in the book.  Nobody seemed that sickened by the heads being launched at them, for starters.  Also, when the Riders of Rohan arrived, I thought it was really cool, but I didn't feel the ships arriving felt as good (I remember in the book it felt like all was lost, even though Rohan came, enemy reenforcements ment they were overwhelmed).  It didn't really feel like that (maybe it was a timing thing, I don't know).  

Anyway, I think that overall, I think the battle was much better.  (The Elephants were really cool )

I liked the movie, and I'm hoping most of the stuff that was cut out is in the extended version.  I guess I'll have to re-read the book to remember what I missed  

[Sirgod]

Well, I also so It tonight, and I have to Admit the Best line that's not in the Book Is when Gimli simply states... "It still counts as One"

I about lost It.

I did have a hard time though after legolas Said anything, to not mutter under My Breath "Mr. Anderson."

Stephen

[Zenister]

Legolas?

i know what you mean though...

[ChAotiCIllusion]

Quote:
Well, I also so It tonight, and I have to Admit the Best line that's not in the Book Is when Gimli simply states... "It still counts as One"

I about lost It.

I did have a hard time though after legolas Said anything, to not mutter under My Breath "Mr. Anderson."

Stephen  

Elrond and we were doing exactly the same thing. Hugo weaving has dne well to get in the 2 big trilogies of recent years though.

[Kortez]

I think Stephen should write 500 times Elrond, not Legolas, is Agent Smith , in the "Matrix" trilogy.

 

[SFC Bennie]

Return of the King (2003), d. Peter Jackson.

I know, I know. In a film translation from literature to cinema. never let your memory of the book sully the movie. I thought I could do that. Honest. I only whined a little bit about Two Towers, and just the teeniest bit about Fellowship, but, alas, it's impossible for me to do so about Peter Jackson's version of the third book in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Return of the King.

Don't be mistaken by my negative tone. This film is a marvelous achievement. As spectacle, it's as grand as it gets. It's a technical wonder. It has great performances. Wonderful scenery. And I loved the first two movies. Yet for some reason it just didn't work for me as well as either Fellowship or Two Towers. It has a lot of wonders, but there are also a lot of little things that niggle at me.

Let's start with the good stuff. You know the part that I loved most in Return of the King? Bernard Hill, magnificent as ever as Théoden King, standing before his army, giving the "sword day/red day" speech, and knocking each of the spears in turn as he parades. Wow. It's a moment of grand emotion that just clicks perfectly. When the disguised Eowyn shouted ?death!? I wanted to scream it too. This is an absolutely amazing scene.

So where's the problem? It's in the set-up. In the book, the Ride of the Rohirrim at the start of the Battle of the Pelennor isn't a great scene; it's one of the high points of the narrative. This is what every single guy in Gondor has been asking Gandalf and Pippin since they arrived in Minas Tirith: "when is Rohan arriving?" In Chapters One and Three, that's pretty much all that people say. Unfortunately, in the film, no one asks it. Why? Because we don't get to really know anyone in Minas Tirith. No one except Denethor and Faramir. As a result, we don't get a sense of the stakes, or what the people have invested in the arrival of the Rohirrim. I never would have guessed that the one character I'd miss most from the books would be Beregond. Never. But there's a great big hole in the heart of Return of the King, and Beregond and the other missing people of Gondor are at the heart of it.  

Worse, the arrival of the Rohirrim are no longer a desperately looked for event, but pretty much turn up uninvited after Gandalf conspires to light the signal fires. And they play second fiddle to the army of the dead anyway, who go far beyond their book role in capturing the ships of the Corsairs; they end up single-handedly winning the Pelennor themselves. (Pity the poor Rohirrim. First they need elves at Helm's Deep, then they need ghosts on the Pelennor. It's a wonder the Dunlanders haven't enslave the lot of them a long time ago.)

Even so, the Ride of the Rohirrim is so magnificently staged and performed that it wins its rightful prominence in the movie - it may rank among the greatest moments in the entire history of film. I only wish that this - and many of the other high points and sequences - had been better supported by the narrative. And moreso here than in any of the previous two films, I wish that the creators had a little more faith in the original material, that Denethor had been subtler, cleverer, and had waited until he was on his pyre before spilling the fact he knew about Aragorn - it made no sense for him to bring it up with Gandalf as soon as they meet and never talk about it again. I wish that Jackson had slapped himself when he thought of ?Frodo kicks Sam off the island for stealing lembas? deviation - yes, the original story where Frodo and Sam get separated is awkwardly written, but this is much, much worse: it's Middle-earth 90210, especially when Sam **gasp** finds the stolen lembas bread and realizes what Gollum's done.

I wish they'd had a Mouth of Sauron to give the final battle a more human face, and to build the tension before the battle. There's a lot of battle sequences, but their setup and context need work.  If anything keeps Return of the King from being the masterpiece it deserves to be, it's that the bits work better than the whole. The film's length works against it - it's so long that it's no wonder the studio balked at including more material, and it definitely suffers for it. It needs quiet moments between the jam of spectacle, to keep the pacing steady. Here, with a few exceptions, it bounces from set piece to set piece. This has been a problem for the entire series, but it's worse here.

And I really wish Jackson had dialed down the emotions one or two notches. The Elrond/Arwen and many of the Frodo and Sam sequences are running at a James Cameron/Titanic levels of overwrought silliness. Frankly, in ten years, this movie's going to be best remembered for the number of bad Sam/Frodo slash parodies it'll have inspired. Jackson overuses the elegiac slow motion effect to the point of ridiculousness, especially when Frodo wakes up on the Field of Cormallen. Admittedly it's overly easy to spot homoeroticism in entertainment these days - we live in snickering times - but Jackson's style has made it very difficult to ignore.

One of the things that's interesting (and to some a little maddening) about Tolkien is that he's willing to provide substantial variations in tone and theme. Middle-earth has noble knights and kings, but it also has commoners and people who chatter on for hours in pubs  With only a few exceptions throughout the series, when Jackson's narrative has deviated from Tolkien, he's been less subtle than the source.

This is not a flaw of a director's who's playing it safe; and that's both Jackson's chief virtue and his biggest problem: Jackson's eye for spectacle and aesthetics is greater than his eye for subtlety, and sometimes Tolkien works best when he's being subtle or whimsical. Or at least mundane; for every Aragorn, you need some glimpse of a Butterbur so you know what he's protecting; for every Faramir, you need a Beregond so that you can see the loyalty he inspires.

However, in terms of overall vision, Rings requires an epic vision, someone who's willing to walk the razor's edge between heightened drama and camp. At this moment in time, Jackson is clearly the right man for the job. His team has engineered a marvel of mood, highlighted by a spectacular vision and attention to detail, augmented by dramatic performances of a Shakespearean caliber and temper that are usually shunned by today's cinema. If Jackson occasionally stumbles onto the wrong side (or the dramatic norm eventually turns against him and the films are eventually consigned to camp) he should be forgiven. Despite its flaws, at its worst Return of the King is a magnificent conclusion to one of the greatest epics in the history of cinema. It's the weakest film of the three, but that's still praising with a very faint damn.    

[Toasty0]

You know what bothered me, and bothered me, and bothered me throughout these 3 movies? It seemed that even though Frodo is supposedly the hero/main character it is Sam who has all the arc and growth. The only other character to come close in the movie version is the ranger/king.

Did you get at all through the 3 films?

Best,
Jerry  

[Elvis]

I thought the portrayal of Frodo was very flat. I'm not sure why I think that though. I felt there was no sense of time having passed. For all would have known it was just two weeks from the shire to Mordor and back again and not 13 monthes. Maybe thats just a limitation of film though. It seemed as if through the last 2 movies he just looked sullen and walked real slow. Keanu Reeves could have done as well. Other things of note, mithril would stop a spear gore  that would skewer a pig but it won't stop the jab of a very large spider. I thought, "Oh my God that stinger is huge." Maybe I always pictured Shelob as more of a black widow and not a tarantula.

The Denethor portrayed in the movies is not the same as the one in the book. The movie Denethor lacks any nobility, he is just mean spirited, the father you would never want even if you were the favored son.

Palantir? Whats a palantir? But those are tied to closely to the King so Aragorn would of had to accept the fact that he was king a lot earlier then the movie portrayed. Maybe I just miss the scene, where Aragorn strives with Sauron and reveals himself and the blade that was once broken. How else would Denethor know?

Anyway  its quite entertaining for 3 hours even though it is 20 minutes longer(they could have just ended it with the eagles).

   

[Kortez]

I saw it tonight.  I would classifiy it as a great movie that makes a lot of strange choices, and leaves out a lot of the subtlety which makes certain characters so great.

One example is what Sam does after Frodo has been stung by Shelob in the book and what he does in the Movie.  There is no sense of the desperation that exists in the book in the movie.  He just charges and kills with Sting.  Nobody knows he even has the ring let alone does anything with it.

Aragorn is mishandled, even though the actor is great as Aragorn.  I agree the palantir was badly mishandled.  I wish they had been able to show how Pippin really first comes into contact with it.  Again, a subtlety is left out for the expediency of a more formulaic telling of the story, and it saves time.  The part with Aragorn claiming the fealty of the army of the dead is nice, but it would have been much better had they used the palantir correctly and conveyed the proper sense, from the book, of how Aragorn keeps his identity as king more or less secret until the right time, all to make sure Sauron is not sure what is going on.

Theoden IS magnificent.  When he dies it is just crushing, and he conveys the care and love he feels for Eowyn very well.  Kudos to Bernard Hill.  

Denethor is totally screwed up.  All he does is eat and show his mean spirited attitude, and nobody ever learns why he is so lost to despair.  Nobody knows he has used a palantir and has been slowly broken by Sauron.  It is totally ignored in the movie release!  I am amazed.  Denethor is not just crushed because of the loss of Boromir.

You are right on about Beregond being one relatively insignificant character whose absence leaves a gaping hole in the complexity of Denethor and Gondor.  We have no idea how interesting Pippin's discussions are with Denethor either, nor does Gandalf say anything to Pippin about how his comments, though, contrary to Gandalf's instructions, make for a possibly even better result.

Oh, and with the palantir that Pippiun touches, the special affects were really amazing.

I looked forward to the Battle of the Pellenor Fields more than about anything else and the army of the dead tainted it.

Nevertheless this was a GREAT movie.  I need to see it again.  I did not move once during the entire showing.