I went to watch the movie with no major expectation, but just to be entertained by some nice graphics and story-telling, and we enjoyed it. I enjoyed the artistic part of the CGI esp. the battle with the majestically- beautiful dragon was quite spell-binding. The pace of the story was alright and we were sufficiently engaged throughout the show. Some characters did remind one of Shrek, but we can still recognise Hopkins and Malkovich, and of course Jolie.
Like in the old Chinese gungfu movies, the themes that resonated seemed to be " ying1 xiong2 nan2 guo4 mei3 ren2 guan1 " and "yi1 shi1 zu2 cheng2 qian1 gu3 hen4 ". Good lessons to learn from.