The latest in the long-running Canadian animal sport/adventure franchise launched a decade ago with Air Bud, Spymate is proof positive that the dog/monkey formula has surpassed its expiration date.

I liked the first Air Bud’s relatively fresh spin on the Benji motif nine years ago. And Spymate is perfectly safe family time-filler. But in this case safe also means bland and terminally slow. I’m all for giving homegrown product a shot on our silver screens, but for every refreshingly original Men With Brooms or Guy Terrifico, there’s a sad look-at-me attempt to prove we’re just as adept at working tired formulas to death as our American cousins. Unfortunately writer-director Robert Vince and collaborator Anna McRoberts fall squarely in the latter category.

After a hair-raising mission in the desert with his simian partner Minkey in 1994, secret agent Mike Muggins (Chris Potter) gives up the spy life to raise daughter Amelia (Emma Roberts, daughter of Eric, niece of Julia). Now a spunky and brainy ’tween, she’s up for a prestigious award for inventing a laser that uses oxygen to produce clean energy. She can’t wait to receive the award from her idols Dr. Amour (Musetta Vander) and Dr. Farley (Spin City’s Richard Kind). Naturally, Dr. Amour is nowhere to be seen, and her partner has a dastardly plan: kidnap Amelia and spirit her to Japan to wreak global havoc with the laser.

Add a retired secret agent dad and his chimp circus performer retired partner and you can guess the rest. Although there are attempts at a hip Agent Cody Banks/Catch That Kid tone, ultimately director Vince’s efforts come off more as early-’70s Kurt Russell Disney at best, which will likely result in droopy target audience eyelids. Savvy parents will wonder wide-eyed at the late Pat Morita’s poor-man’s-Miyagi tutelage of Minkey. Kind grabs a paycheck as Farley, and Debra Jo Rupp has a frustrating one-joke turn as a former colleague who just can’t squeeze into her leather garb.