According to the Minecraft Wiki, it looks like the iron golems toss the player up into the sky. It's nice to see melee mobs that attack in a fashion other than just running in to you until you die!
All the graphic mods do seem to be against the spirit of Minecraft, and besides, I think it looks fine on default. I couldn't stand playing with one on because I'd have to re-memorize what all the block types looked like though.