I agree. If Sam Neill was in the second film, it might have been a little better. Jeff Goldblum/Ian Malcolm is such an unsympathetic and smarmy lead that you actually will him to get mangled.
This film, for me, is one of two defining moments in CGI and animatronic cinema production. This, and Terminator 2, made a giant leap from what was around at the time, and to this day still look spectacularly brilliant. To me, that is almost the pinnacle of CG. We have some incredible stuff around now (I should know, I have my degree in CGI & animatronics) but with all the gloss and the shine it loses soem of the emotional effect.