Venice, Italy | A group of civilised if many-legged aliens makes contact with the world in "Arrival", in competition at the Venice film festival, and it's up to Amy Adams to figure out what they want.

Adams, the US star of "The Master" and "American Hustle", plays expert linguist Louise Banks, brought in by the US army to help translate what the knobbly-kneed creatures are saying after alien pods pop up worldwide.

Banks may speak everything from Farsi to Mandarin but this modern-day version of first contact -- a staple of alien films since ET's "phone home" in Steven Spielberg's 1982 classic -- leaves her temporarily stumped.

Predictably, the global powers argue amongst themselves and a group of "rogue" nations with China at its head decides that in order to save humanity they should blow these gentle if enormous creatures out of the sky.

It's up to brave Banks, a mother who has loved and lost, to put her life on the line by confronting the seven-legged creepies -- dubbed "heptapods" from the Greek word for seven.

In doing so, she uncovers a secret that will change the world in an act of intellectual heroism that may well do for modern languages what Lara Croft did for archaeology.

Beyond the nukes-versus-flying saucer scenario, Quebecois director Denis Villeneuve, who based the film on Ted Chiang's short "Story of Your Life", leaves breathing room for a persuasive performance from Adams.

- 'Humanity needs humility' -Villeneuve, best known for his crime-thrillers "Prisoners" (2013) and "Sicario" (2015), said the idea of the flick, which pairs Adams with fellow "American Hustle" star Jeremy Renner, was to give humans a wake-up call.

As the plot develops, the past, future and present blur, leaving one constant theme: death. Villeneuve said the idea was that even if you can see into the future, knowing and preparing cannot stop the inevitable.

"By being more in relationship with death, in an intimate way with the nature of life and its subtleties, it would bring us more humility," he said.

"Humanity needs that humility right now. We are in an era with a lot of narcissism."

The Hollywood Reporter was suitably impressed, dubbing the film "the anti-Independence Day" and likening it instead to "far more nuanced interplanetary explorations such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind".

But Variety said the "military-showdown cliches" hamper Villeneuve, who fails to create an original work: "you feel you've had a close encounter with what might have been an amazing movie, but not actual contact".

- Gift or burden? -Adams, who was to take to the red carpet with Renner later on Thursday at the beach-side festival, said the world would be lucky if any aliens that did deign to visit Earth were "as patient as our 'heptapods'".

"We presume aliens would have a thought pattern similar to ours but that's a big presumption," she said, referring to the challenges faced by Renner's character who tries to crack their code with pure maths.

Red-head Adams, who has played everything from a Disney princess to Lois Lane in "Man of Steel", said that despite her success, she is a worrier who would turn down the gift of prophecy featured in the film.

"I stay awake scared by things, I cling to anxiety in my life, it seems to be a constant companion. I think I would be very anxious if I knew what was to come," she said.

"However our lives go, eventually we always experience loss, sadness. I don't want to know it's coming."