I just rewatched the series for the first time in years and I have to say The Curse of the Black Pearl is the best of the series by far.
It’s so funny how the producers just never really seemed to understand Johnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow character. During production of the first movie they were terrified and accused Depp of ruining the movie with his unique ideas for the character but after the huge success of the first film the producers realized they had lightning in a bottle and decided to take it a step further in the following films with the Jack Sparrow character. Yet they STILL didn’t seem to understand the character. Instead of doubling down on Jack’s ability to always be several steps ahead while playing the fool to throw his enemies off the producers just doubled down on the playing a fool part and turn Jack into a cartoon character a lot of the time. The entire escape scene with Jack getting away from the cannibals is a perfect example of this. It’s more based on dumb luck than anything else. I still like all the movies but they just don’t reach the brilliance of The Curse of the Black Pearl.