I saw it Friday night, we took the kids, 11 and 8. It was AWESOME! Wonderful acting by the four kids. Very impressive.
Actually I thought the reason the girls were the ones to see him die was a parallel of the Marys at Golgatha. Not that it was 'sexist' in some archaic way.
I'm relieved to hear they haven't messed with the book in re-defining the roles for modern prejudices. The one thing I really hated about The Lord of the Rings was the transformation of Arwen Evenstar into Xena, Warrior Princess. And a lot of my feminist women friends who had grown up with both feminism and LOTR said the same.