Arrival teaser trailer: Amy Adams stars in Denis Villeneuve’s philosophical alien contact drama

'Language is the first weapon drawn in a conflict'

The first footage from Sicario director Denis Villeneuve’s new film Arrival is here and it looks quite promising.

The TV spot (full trailer expected soon) teases a fairly familiar premise - aliens have landed, how do we initiate contact with them? - but is set to go more down the cerebral route than the laser rifle blasting one.

Arrival is based on Ted Chiang’s award-winning 2000 short story Story of Your Life, which sort of gets a name check in the teaser and explores determinism, language and the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis with regards to encountering alien life.

As it is quite succinctly put in the clip: “Language is the first weapon drawn in a conflict.”

Jeremy Renner and Forest Whitaker co-star in Arrival, which has an outside shot at picking up some Oscars in 2017.

Here’s the official synopsis and release date from Paramount:

When mysterious spacecrafts touch down across the globe, an elite team - lead by expert linguist Louise Banks (Amy Adams) - is brought together to investigate. As mankind teeters on the verge of global war, Banks and the team race against time for answers – and to find them, she will take a chance that could threaten her life, and quite possibly humanity. In theatres Nov 11, 2016.