The movie’s name is perhaps its sole stroke of genius: Just hearing the words “Chick Fight” immediately body-slams expectations to the mat, after which Paul Leydon’s anodyne comedy manages to just about put them in a submission hold. Dude, one can almost anticipate saying, it’s called “Chick Fight,” what did you expect? On the other hand, the very crowd attracted by the R-rating and promisingly un-pc title may feel cheated. Instead of the cleavage, hair-pulling and Jerry Springer antics it teases, “Chick Fight” serves up a blandly formulaic and scrupulously inoffensive tale of female empowerment.

Anna (Malin Akerman) is having the kind of overkill Bad Day that beautiful women in Hollywood movies tend to have as proof that they’re just as much of a screw-up as you are, lol. Sitting on the toilet, brushing her teeth, the pointedly non-sex-having Anna rolls her eyes at her neighbor’s loud,...