James Griffin: The blockbuster on the campaign trail

James Griffin. Photo / Dean Purcell

It is getting into that time of the year when Hollywood rolls out its "tent pole" movies, so-called because of the tenting effect all the money they bring in puts into the trousers of Hollywood studio executives. Yep, this is the time of the year when we're all on the edge of our seats, wondering how truly crap the latest Transformers film will actually be, and praying we're not the parent who draws the short straw and has to take the kids to three hours of Michael Bay explosions, intermingled with his usual incomprehensible, vomitous mess of scenes that allegedly passes as plot.

On a somewhat happier note, the influx of dross that heralds the invasion of American summer releases is at least being spearheaded by the jolly Johnny Depp and the latest instalment in the Best Ever Movie Franchise Based on a Theme Park Ride, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. How they can possibly make anything stranger than the last Pirates film is a mystery to me, but any film with Keith Richards in it gets my vote, so you'll eventually find me there, eating popcorn and being baffled in a large dark room.

But the thing about Stranger Tides that intrigues me (admittedly without having seen the film, but I'm not going to let that get in the way of a good yarn) is just how much it could be seen as some kind of parable or fable, or something of that ilk, for the political landscape in New Zealand, as the jockeying for position for the election starts up. Seriously, if you apply the same story-lining logic they do to the actual Pirates of the Caribbean films (i.e. not much) then the plot for Pirates of the South Pacific: Voyage of the Dumbed is appearing before our very eyes.

On one side of the story there is the good ship Natty, under the command of the effervescent and perpetually smiling Captain Bluebeard, the least-feared pirate on the seven seas, who doesn't have a beard (or much hair) at all. Bluebeard commands a hale and hearty crew, and he keeps them all amused with his effervescent personality and infectious smile. It's a sturdy ship, sitting low in the water, especially whichever side of the ship 2nd Mate Gerry "Barrel o' Rum" Brownlee is standing on.

The Natty cruises the waters of the South Pacific, avoiding trouble wherever it goes. In fact, Captain Bluebeard's primary talent as a pirate is seeing trouble on the horizon and steering his ship as far away from it as possible. It's not exactly standard piratical behaviour but it seems to be working well for Bluebeard.

Bluebeard's bitter rival for control of the seas around the fabled land of Aotearoa is Redbeard, who also doesn't have a beard but his image advisers have told him having the word "beard" in his name makes him appear tougher and more decisive than his other name of Captain Squidgy. Redbeard commands the not-so-good ship Rudderless, which spends most of the time drifting aimlessly round the shallows, running into reefs.

It seems like every time Redbeard shouts an order to sail somewhere, one of his crew takes the helm, goes the wrong way and runs the ship aground. It is very frustrating for Redbeard.

There are other pirates in the waters of the South Pacific, but they're mainly for comic relief. A motley crew of vegetarian pirates have all called themselves Greenbeard and all equally co-captain their papyrus raft The Future of the Planet - except the raft was, ironically, sunk by a pod of whales, so they now camp on the Moral Highlands where all the other pirates ignore them.

There are some ferocious native pirates, paddling their waka for all they're worth. They try to come across as scary but mostly they're not, except when they're fighting each other, which is most of the time.

There is also a pirate called Old Greyhair, who paddles a small rowboat round and round in circles and never gets anywhere. Plus there are a group of undead pirates, ghosts from a previous age of piracy, who have a flash boat called the Spirit of Rogernomics, but it never leaves their home port of Epsom so no one worries about them either.

Eventually, in Pirates of the South Pacific: Voyage of the Dumbed all these pirates will meet in a terrible battle for control of the high seas. And by terrible I mean terrible as in "bad", not as in "massive loss of life". They will trade lame broadsides of insults and attempt to win hearts and minds with sweet talk that is actually drivel.

In the end no one will win and, as with all tent-pole movies, it will be all about setting up the sequel: Pirates of the South Pacific: Three More Years of This Crap.