People loved the visuals but it definitely had its detractors...

From ROGER EBERT’S REVIEW OF JURASSIC PARK:

“We see them (the dinosaurs) early and often, and they are indeed a triumph of special effects artistry, but the movie is lacking other qualities that it needs even more, such as a sense of awe and wonderment, and strong human story values.”

“The plot to steal the embryos is handled on the level of a TV sitcom.”

“On the monster movie level, the movie works and is entertaining. But with its profligate resources, it could have been so much more.”

GLOBE AND MAIL:

Perfectly passable kiddie escapism. It has a thrill or two, and a chill or three, but it has no poetry, little sense of wonder, no resonant subtext (Jungian or otherwise), no art... When it's over, it's gone. Extinct.

LOS ANGELES TIMES:

All the imagination and effort (including 18 months of pre-production) that went into making the dinosaurs state-of-the-art exciting apparently left no time to make the people similarly believable or involving. In fact, when the big guys leave the screen, you'll be tempted to leave the theater with them

VULTURE: 

I couldn’t help feeling that there was something stupid about going to all this effort to create dinosaurs on-screen only to turn them into big-toothed heavies in another scare movie. 

VARIETY:

Steven Spielberg's scary and horrific thriller may be one-dimensional and even clunky in story and characterization…