AND on a packed movie menu tonight we have the programming equivalent of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. The good being The Godfather II, the middle part of Francis Ford Coppola's stupendous trilogy; the bad - and we're talking very bad - is Keys to Freedom, which ostensibly is about Hongkong; and the ugly is Ratboy, a wretched little affair directed by Clint Eastwood's old girlfriend Sondra Locke. NOBODY thought he could do it, but in The Godfather, Part II (Pearl 9.45pm, original running time 200 mins), Coppola managed to create a sequel even more compelling and dramatic than the first. This one flashes backwards to the early 1900s, when the original godfather Vito Corleone (played by Marlon Brando in the original film and by Robert de Niro in II) was a young man just getting started in small-time crime. And it flashes forward to new godfather Michael (Al Pacino) and his involvement in Vegas, Cuba and a Senate hearing on organised crime. It also charts Michael's increasing obsession with power, a twisted obsession that leads to paranoia and reduces him to killing family and friends and alienating his wife (Diane Keaton). Most of the characters who weren't rubbed out in the first film are here again, as is that memorable theme tune. This one also picked up six Oscars, including Best Supporting Actor for De Niro, though Pacino again missed out on Best Actor. It's a little worrying that the film was originally 200 minutes long, and Pearl has only allowed it a 210-minute time slot. Either there are very few ads, or . . . snip. ON to the bad, and Keys to Freedom (World 9.30pm) looks at the run-up to 1997 in Hongkong, and the plight of the ''millions of families who have enjoyed British asylum for 100 years'' - well, that's one way of putting it. Ever-popular Jane Seymour plays a doctor married to a corrupt millionaire (Omar Sharif). Enter Zach (Jim Youngs) who unwittingly becomes involved in the illegal trade in American passports, or ''keys to freedom''. Even local interest is sparse since most of the film was shot in Penang. AS for the ugly, Ratboy (Pearl 3.15am, ORT 105 mins) is the story of a country girl who rescues a rat-like boy and turns him into a star. Ms Locke (Every Which Way But Loose) described the film as a '' black, funny and sad comedy''. It's none of those and it's safe to assume that if Eastwood hadn't been ''in lurve'' at the time, he'd never have got involved. BRIAN Langley introduces more live coverage of the World Cup Sevens (Prime Sports 9pm) at Murrayfield. Hongkong, who have been ranked 250-1 outsiders by the bookies, will play Canada, while New Zealand takes on Korea, and 7-4 favourites Fiji will do battle with Wales. There's more live sport this afternoon with tennis action from the Salem Open (Pearl 2pm) at Victoria Park.
