Starring Chadwick Boseman. Rated PG

Whether by fortuity, planning, or a combination of both, Black Panther couldn't be timlier. There's a sequence set in South Korea, which coincides with the world's attention turning to the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang. Then there's the release date: timed within Black History Month, not to mention the ongoing discussion about diversity in Hollywood. And there's also strong female representation, amid the screen-industry's shakedown on gender.

All of this bodes well for what is a highly polished, slick, and solid piece of entertainment that marks a major breakthrough in the Hollywood mainstream on multiple levels, not the least of which is sci-fi. While there have been some black superheroes on screen in the past—Blade, X-Men's Storm and Bishop, War Machine, Luke Cage, Black Lightning, Justice League's Cyborg—Black Panther is bolstered by an Afrofuturist vision that upends stereotypical understandings of culture, class, and technology.

Like Wonder Woman's fictional, hidden island nation of Themyscira, our hero T'Challa (an effortlessly magnetic Chadwick Boseman) comes from the fictional, hidden African nation of Wakanda. After five tribes warred over the discovery of vibranium (a fictional metal brought to Earth by a meteorite), they were united by the rise of a warrior who ingested a vibranium-infused herb and became the first superpowered Black Panther. The metal became central to the nation's decision to pursue technological advancement in seclusion from the rest of the world. 

However, political differences over Wakanda's isolationist policies lead to a rift between the newly crowned T'Challa—the current Black Panther—and an outsider rival. The brazen and powerful U.S. black ops soldier Erik "Killmonger" Stevens (a superbuff Michael B. Jordan) seeks to become king so that he can distribute Wakanda's technology to help black people worldwide. 

While the fight choreography and action sequences here are engaging, they're not particularly innovative and they don't quite match the dynamism of Black Panther's previous appearance in Captain America: Civil War. 

What compensates is that Black Panther is backed up by a roster of resourceful and action-driven women: there's the phalanx of female elite warriors, led by the bold Okoye (Danai Gurira); T'Challa's tech-wiz sister Shuri (Letitia Wright), who offsets T'Challa's seriousness by delivering some of the script's best zingers; undercover spy Nakia (Lupita Nyong'o); and the Queen of Wakanda (Angela Bassett, who proves she should've been cast as Storm in previous X-Men films).

What also helps to distract from weaknesses or lulls is that one of the major stars here, as in Thor: Ragnarok, is the art direction. Visually rich and vibrant, it's a counterpoint to the trendy, grey grittiness that marked numerous superhero and action blockbusters in the wake of 2005's Batman Begins, often sapping stories of their inherent magic. Thankfully that's not the case with Black Panther, which is further aided by a smooth, cohesive narrative flow that juggles numerous storylines.

In the same way that Patty Jenkins' Wonder Woman rejuvenated an increasingly overpopulated and repetitious superhero genre with a female-based perspective, director Ryan Coogler (Creed) enlivens what could have been a tired rehashing of tropes with a bracing blast of fresh elements. Both films prove that diversity is not about simply inserting previously underrepresented characters into familiar content—it's about how telling stories from unheard perspectives can introduce an expanse of new terrain.