Stakes So Big They're No Stakes at All

The "Teminator" movies have always been about the imminent, and in some cases, inevitable, destruction of the human race: Sarah Connor may successfully protect the baby in her womb, but at the end of the first "Terminator," she drives off into the coming storm, with no way to prevent the imminent deaths of 3 billion people in a nuclear holocaust.
"Terminator 2" allows them a chance to stave off Judgment Day, but the basic goal is still the same: Protect John Connor.
In "Genisys," the human element has been removed: With the timeline reset, it's no longer clear that protecting John or Sarah even matters anymore. The only objective is the all-important yet strangely weightless need to Save the World, the same thing that's at the center of virtually ever superhero movie and most contemporary blockbusters. At a certain point, the stakes become so big they cease to matter: We know an expensive studio movie isn't going to end with the suggestion that the human race is doomed (unless it's "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes"), which means that instead of biting our nails, we're just killing time. You could, of course, say the same about "Terminator 2," except that there, the race to stop Judgment Day is wrapped inside an equally important objective: Sarah Connor's need to prove, to herself and to her son, that she is not insane. Caring about what happens in a movie begins with caring what happens to the people in it, and "Genisys" and "Jurassic World" give us no reason to.