It did? You mean because of the east India company ? I forget what exactly the stakes were. All I remember is that big fight around a whirlpool 
AXTE INCAL AXTUCE MUN
The kraken died off-screen in the 3rd one. They more or less said that if the pirates couldn't defeat the East India Company, then it would be the end of cool supernatural stuff and freedom on all the oceans.
Because pirates are the true defenders of freedom.
And ironically Disney is one of the biggest opponents of piracy
The stakes were Calipso on one side threatening to lay wastes to the sea, and Cutler Becket on the other side poised to put every empire on the planet under his restrictions.
Meanwhile all the other movies have the stakes of 'Some pirates and their associates might die because of the situations they've put themselves in.'
I would say the scene in which Carter three times broke out of the interrogation only to be instantly recaptured in a single scene while his superior got increasingly bloodied was a whimsy on level with Pirates.
Pin pointing the tone of Pirates is quite difficult, as certainly it goes far darker than the other examples I listed, and while most of the films are concerned simply with the fates of the characters, At World's End certainly had the fate of the world at stake with the same level of explicitness as Carter.