Richard Holley

Review of National Geographic

I finally got a chance to visit this museum this p...

I finally got a chance to visit this museum this past weekend and it was pretty great overall. New visitors should be warned though that if you're expecting something on the scale of a Smithsonian then you'll be disappointed.
The exhibits span the bottom floors of two adjoining buildings (maybe more like 1 and a half) and rotate every few months. The two main exhibits right now are a pretty moving collection of portraits of various animal species. A number of them are rare, endangered, or already extinct so the exhibit notes that these may be the only portraits of them that ever exist. Very sad.
The other exhibit is an Indiana Jones prop collection that utilizes audio and video headsets to guide your through props from all four movies, behind the scenes information, storyboards, and stories from production. Nat Geo was also smart in that they integrated real life archaeological exhibits in this display so that you could understate how the real process plays out and where the movie drew its inspiration from. The only negative is that due to the small size of the walkways it can get cramped as everyone just tends to stop in order to watch their tablet screens.

The exhibit in the other building is an undersea photo gallery that documents efforts to protect more of the worlds oceans. This building also houses a movie theater that's currently showing a 3d film on Jerusalem that is narrated by Benedict Cumberbatch. It's worth a watch for the scenery and aerial shots alone!

Last bit of advice, when you buy your tickets they'll give you an entry time to actually go into the museum. For me it was 30 minutes later but I'd imagine it could be longer during busier hours. Plan for the potential wait!